Camp and Tepee 




A Mountain Camp. 



In Camp and Tepee 



AN INDIAN MISSION STORY 



By 

ELIZABETH M. PAGE 



ILLUSTRATED 




New York 

Fleming 

London 



Chicago Toronto 

H. Revell Company 

and Edinburgh 



Copyright, 1915* b y 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave. 
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 

APR -7 1915 

©CI, A 3 9743 9 
%4 t 



A tribute of love to the 
Reformed Church in America 
and to its 
Women's Board of Domestic Missions 



Preface 



IN writing this book I have not attempted to 
give a consecutive history of the Indian 
Missions of the Keformed Church, but from 
the knowledge of their origin and growth gathered 
through years of experience while acting as Field 
Secretary of the Women's Board I have endeavored 
to make clear the hopefulness of Indian mission 
work. 

I am indebted for much of my material to my 
sister, Mrs. Walter C. Eoe, who gave me access to 
such of Dr. Eoe's papers as might be helpful ; to 
Rev. Eichard H. Harper and his daughter, from 
whom I received the facts on which the Mescalero 
chapters are based ; to Mrs. L. L. Legters for the 
early history of the Fort Sill Mission ; to Eev. Henry 
Eoe Cloud for advice and careful criticism of the 
chapters on Winnebago. Much is due also to the 
Indians whose letters coming from time to time 
during the years of my service have given me an 
insight and understanding otherwise impossible. 
To these I wish to express my gratitude. 

In the task of composition, my daughter, Eliza- 
beth M. Page, and I have worked together as arch- 
itect and builder. Up to a certain point I had the 
responsibility of the general plan while she did the 
actual writing under my constant supervision. At 

7 



8 



Preface 



the end she was unable to continue her part, and 
the completion of the book came upon me. "When 
laboring alone, I realized my utter inability to have 
accomplished the whole task by myself, and it is 
due to the help given by my daughter that this 
book has been written. 

While my material, collected in the form of notes, 
reports and letters, has been drawn from the missions 
of one denomination, the conditions and problems 
are such as can be found in any field. 

There are those who will say, " The Indian was 
well enough before the missionary tampered with 
him. He had his religion that suited him, the prod- 
uct of his race thought, full of beauty and poetry. 
What can you give him that will equal it ? Let him 
alone, he is better so." Ah, but what is now the 
old religion of the Indian ? In his grandfather's 
time, perhaps, there were still those whose high 
minds held thoughts of reverence, or back in the 
days before the white man came, men felt and 
worshipped sincerely and purely. To-day the 
" Witch Doctor " rules with grip of terror. De- 
bauchery is more sought after than peace. The 
old days are gone, as the staunchest conservative of 
them all will tell you, and the purity of the old 
religion with them. 

Why should this be ? The old faith, at its best, 
was the faith of childhood, and it was a faith for 
each child alone. So long as the Indian lived in a 
world of childhood, so long as that world was so 
narrow he need think only of his one soul and his 



Preface 



9 



god, so long and only so long could his faith endure. 
The Indian stands now in a world thronging full of 
men. With such conditions the teaching of his 
old gods is inadequate to cope. What if we in our 
pride leave hiin to the wreck of his childhood world 
and go sweeping on our way ? Nations like men 
may be brought to the judgment bar and tried. 
When America shall stand on trial before history, 
before civilization, before God, she must answer for 
these red men in the light of what she might have 
done, and what she did. Shall she hear it said, 
You found a childlike race whose childish faith you 
in your onward march did of necessity destroy. 
You held in your hand the chance to bring to the 
world all that race had to give of poetry, of beauty 
and of truth, but you kept him a child where you 
might have made him a man. You destroyed his 
gods and gave him nothing in their place. 

If this shall be the course that America will take, 
then let the Indian condemn her, for in that day he 
can say, " You had the road and you walked in it 
but you left me to follow a blind trail." 

Elizabeth M. Page. 



Contents 





Introduction .... 


• 15 


I. 


First Beginnings 


. 24 


II. 


Leaves from Dr. Roe's Diary . 


• 38 


III. 




61 


IV. 


The Breaking of the Ranks 


• 76 


V. 


The First Camp-Meetings . 


• 93 


VI. 


The Beginning of the Harvest 


. 109 


VII. 


Prisoners of War 


. 127 


VIII. 


Beginnings Among the Comanches 


149 


IX. 


Glimpses 


. 163 


X. 


A Winnebago Boy 


. 180 


XI. 


Up-Stream Work 


• 199 


XII. 


Mescalero Apaches . 


216 


XIII. 


The Release .... 


. 229 


XIV. 


Towards the Southwest . 


242 



Illustrations 

Facing Page 

A Mountain Camp Title 

"A Neglected Race" 20 

'That Borderland of the Prairies" . . 28 

Inside a Windbreak 44 v 

"Clinging to the Old Life" . . . . 66 
The Little White Mother .... 80 
"She Raised Pole After Pole" . .100 
"The Pioneer Days Were One at Colony" . 126 
"The Success of the Experiment Was Ob- 
vious" 142 

Comanche Men 154 

Nahuatz 164 

A Staunch Medicine Lodge Supporter . 192 

Louisa Bear 210 

The Solitary Tepee Braced Against the 

Biting Wind 220 

An Indian Lodge 230 

Towards the Southwest .... 242 



Introduction 



EAES ago a preacher in Omaha happened 



to notice a paragraph in his morning paper 



A that told of the arrest of a few Indians on 
the charge of vagrancy. Dr. Harsha had long had 
a vague sentimental interest in the Eed Men, those 
" sons of the forest and rightful lords of the soil," 
and now he determined to take his Bible out to the 
fort where these Indians were held and to talk with 
the band of wanderers. Accordingly, a few hours 
later, a soldier let him into the enclosure between 
the buildings of the fort. His quick eyes took in 
the ragged, huddling group of men and women 
against the gray background of military buildings, 
and the wood-pile at one side which would afford 
the slight elevation necessary to dominate the au- 
dience. His guide pointed out a young man among 
the prisoners who would act as interpreter, and 
left him alone with the silently watching crowd. 
For the first time, doubts of his own adequacy as- 
sailed him as he mounted the unstable logs to ex- 
plain his benevolent errand. He never got beyond 
the first few words, however, for the young Indian 
interrupted him with a quick, fierce gesture. 

" We do not need the Bible," he said. " We 
and our fathers have been Christians for many 




16 In Camp and Tepee 



years. We do not need the Bible ; we need justice. 
We are Poncas. Have you heard of the Poncas ? " 

The preacher shook his head. 

" Then hear us and give us justice. If you are a 
good man give us justice. 

" Long, long ago we lived in the Dakotas, and we 
lived quietly on our farms, but our life was full of 
danger. We were met and killed by the Sioux on 
the north, by the Pawnees on the west, and by the 
Osages and Konzas on the south. And we were 
dying in those days. But our old men were very 
wise and they saw a way to save us that we might 
not die. We made ourselves friends with the white 
people, and when the white people came to fight 
our enemies the Sioux, we fought with our friends, 
the white people. Many of our young men died 
in that war, but we did not turn from our friends. 

" Then the Great Father of the white people 1 
said to us : 6 If you will give us your land in the 
Dakotas we will give you land in Nebraska for you 
and your children forever. You will be near your 
friends, the Omahas, and we will give schools for 
your children, and money for horses and ploughs 
to work your farms, and for building houses to 
shelter you in storm. We will be your friends and 
fight for you as you have fought for us. Only give 
us your land in the Dakotas and we will give this 
land to you and your children forever.' He said 
that, the Great Father said it, and we thought his 
words were good. So we signed the treaty, and 

1 The President. 



Introduction 



long, long ago we left our homes in the Dakotas 
and came to our homes in Nebraska. The land was 
very little, but it was for us and our children for- 
ever, and we were glad. 

" But for a long time it seemed as if the Great 
Father had forgotten his words to us. We had no 
schools, we had no money for horses and ploughs, 
and we had no houses. Our enemies, the Sioux, 
stole our ponies and our corn and we were very 
poor and very hungry ; and we saw that the white 
people drove herds of cattle over our reservation to 
feed the Sioux who were always fighting and we, 
their friends, were starving. But we did not steal 
the cattle of the white people. We were true to 
our friends. At last the Great Father remembered, 
and gave us a little of our money and we made 
schools and built us houses. We were happy for 
we were learning to live. Sometimes the locusts 
ate our crops, sometimes the Sioux killed some of 
our young men, sometimes the white soldiers 
hunted our women, but we were learning to live 
and to be strong. 

" Then one day there came a white man, Mr. 
Kemble, who said we must move away. He said 
the white miners had found things of great value 
in the Black Hills of the Yankton Sioux, and they 
must be moved to our reservation and we must ask 
to be moved away. But we said we did not want 
to go, the land was ours, we would stay. Then the 
white man, Mr. Kemble, gathered the worthless 
men of our tribe and gave them whiskey to sign 



18 In Camp and Tepee 



this petition, and he signed all the names of the 
Indians that were dead, that these men told him 
of, and if an Indian had two names, he made him 
sign twice, and so he filled out the petition. Then 
he said we had agreed, we must go. 

" Then we said : ' Will a man give away what is 
his unless he be paid ? ' 

" Mr. Kemble said he would give us better land 
and more land in Indian Territory. He would 
take our chiefs to see it and if it was not good 
they could tell the White Father we would not go. 
So he took a number of our chiefs and brought 
them to Indian Territory and he showed them 
three bad pieces of land and he said : 6 If you do 
not take these, I will leave you alone. You are 
one thousand miles from home. Tou have no 
money. You have no interpreter and you cannot 
speak the language. I will leave you here.' But 
there was no good water and the chiefs would not 
take it. So he left them there. My uncle can tell 
you; he was there." And he nodded to an old 
Indian who was following every look and gesture 
and who now spoke long and eagerly to the in- 
terpreter. 

" He says it was winter, and they started home 
on foot. They slept in the haystacks, and they 
hardly lived till morning. They ate the ears of 
corn that dried in the fields and they ate them raw. 
The soles of their moccasins wore out, and they 
went barefoot in the snow. But at the end of 
seventy-one days they came home. He says that. 



Introduction 



*9 



"Mr. Kemble had come back and moved some of 
our people away, so the chiefs sent a telegram to 
the President, but no answer came. At last the 
white soldiers came and burned our houses and 
trampled our crops, then they loaded what they 
could on the wagons. We said we would die rather 
than leave our lands, but we could not help our- 
selves. They took us down into Indian Territory. 
Many died on the road. My two children died. 
After we reached the new land all our horses died. 
The water was very bad. All our cattle died ; not 
one was left. And there was no land for us ; all 
that land was taken up, and we must starve. Then 
my uncle said : i I will lead you back to the land 
the Great Father promised to you and your chil- 
dren forever.' So we started back again. We 
were weak, we were sick and we were starved, but we 
have stolen nothing on the road. We have worked 
for the little we have eaten. It took us three months 
to come here. The Omahas gave us a little piece 
of land. We were in a hurry to plough it and put 
in wheat that our children might eat, but the 
soldiers arrested us for being off our reservation. 
We would rather have died than have left our lands, 
but we could not help ourselves. You have heard 
us ; if you are a good man, give us justice." 

Long after Dr. Harsha left the fort those words 
rang in his ears : " If you are a good man, give us 
justice." He set to work with a will to get it for 
them. He laid their case before his big church, 
and it rose in answer to the call. Money was 



20 In Camp and Tepee 



raised, the Indians were released, and the minister 
took them, with some influential Omaha citizens to 
back them, to Washington, there to plead the cause 
of their tribe. A storm of indignation arose that 
swept the country. People everywhere demanded 
that justice be done until at last the Indians were 
given an island that had been a part of their 
old devastated reserve, and there they settled in 
safety. 

That, to the casual glance, was the end of it all. 
But the popular interest aroused all through the 
East in the Indian problem did not entirely die. 
Here and there were those who questioned whether 
all responsibility ended with the securing of tardy 
justice for a few members of a neglected race. A 
great vista opened of thronging tribes bewildered 
amidst changing conditions with which neither 
their old religion nor their old philosophy was 
adequate to cope. "Was civilized America to give 
them nothing for all it took away ? A group of 
women in the Reformed Church of America talked 
of this and longed for a chance to start a mission 
work among those unreached thousands on the 
Western plains — talked and longed, but, for lack of 
funds, feared they would never do anything else. 

Then in 1893 came the great World's Fair. The 
White City rising by the lake had a message for 
the crowds that thronged it. The merchant found 
there the symbol of his achievement and his dream ; 
the artist, a vision of beauty and an ideal ; the 
churches, a great country and a mighty need that 




f A Neglected Race. : 



Introduction 



21 



called for their gift of gold. As a result of this 
summons and the enthusiasm aroused by it, the 
women of the Reformed Church found in its hands, 
at the close of that wonderful year, $4,000 to be 
used for American work. The women of the Board 
of Domestic Missions saw their chance at last. 
Their Indian Mission had ceased to be a dream. 

They began hunting for a man to pioneer their 
work, and Dr. Harsha, now a minister of one of 
their New York City churches, immediately sug- 
gested an Indian evangelist, Frank Hall Wright, 
whom his church had been supporting for a year. 
" He is splendidly fitted for it," he said. " Himself 
an Indian, he would not be likely to fall into the 
mistakes that would be inevitable to a white man. 
He has a glorious voice, a magnetic personality and 
unbounded enthusiasm. He has had to give up 
his evangelistic work because of a breakdown with 
consumption, but if we could get him, he would be 
just the man." 

At this same time in a home farther up-town an 
Indian man lay stretched in a great chair wheeled 
close to a roaring fire. His eyes were fixed on the 
leaping flames but his thoughts were following a 
narrowing track back through the years. He could 
not tell when it had come to him first, — the thought 
that because he was an Indian his especial field of 
work lay among the people of his own blood, — but 
it had haunted him for years. With all the fastidi- 
ous refinement of his nature increased by the 
memories of his beautiful childhood home and the 



22 In Camp and Tepee 



cultured training of his youth and early manhood, 
he shrank from the filth and degradation of the less 
fortunate members of his father's race. His sense 
of responsibility had weighed upon him until he 
began, with Mrs. Wright, to support a substitute on 
the field. Then came a break in health and with 
increasing weakness old spectres awoke to intoler- 
able activity. He could not escape. Was he be- 
ing forced to think of the need of his father's 
people ? Was this his task that no substitute could 
perform ? Had he, all these years, been shirking 
the highest good ? Step by step it had been gain- 
ing on him. As he lay watching the leaping flames 
that stormy afternoon, he felt he stood at the last 
ditch of his opposition. 

" Show me the way," he prayed. " I will go 
anywhere — to any people — but not to the Blanket 
Indians, Lord. . . . Show me the way." Even 
as he prayed came the summons to the one place to 
which he said he would not go. Two ladies, the 
present president of the Board and the official head 
of the new work, who had braved a terrible storm 
to seek him, were ushered in. They saw a man, 
emaciated and weak, whose thin frame was even 
then shaken with the paroxysm of coughing which 
the excitement of their coming had caused. Yet 
they laid the stupendous task of founding their new 
work in the hands of this apparently dying man. 
Who shall dare to say that their strange faith was 
not the answer to his prayer? That the Indian 
evangelist so considered it is sufficiently evident 



Introduction 



2 3 



from his immediately accepting the call and making 
preparations to go, though his doctors told him he 
would never live to reach the field and his friends 
thought him more than foolhardy. 



I 

FIBST BEGINNINGS 

IT was an afternoon in the early fall of 1895. 
The slanting rays of the Oklahoma sun fell on 
a band of Comanche Indians on the move. 
Four or five spotted ponies plodded wearily through 
the dust, one carrying three little naked boys on its 
bony back. Two more, " trailers/' without saddle 
or bridle, struggled and plunged through the tough 
grass beside the track where six Indian wagons 
rattled along, with their dingy white sheets, which 
were usually rolled high on the long protruding 
frame, pulled close down on the westward side to 
give some shadow for the family crouching beneath. 
Behind just far enough to escape the worst of the 
sickening swirl of dust kicked up by the little 
caravan came another outfit, a Studebaker hack 
with its narrow, compact body, stout wheels, and 
light, white canvas top, drawn by two sleek, well- 
fed horses — the whole contrasting strongly with 
the grass-fed ponies and ramshackle " prairie- 
schooners " ahead. A feed-bucket swung from the 
axle of the hack, a tent-pole protruded from the 
rear beside the rectangular bulk of the chuck-box, 
and the space between these and the front seat was 
filled in with two rolls of bedding, a battered suit- 

24 



First Beginnings 



25 



case, a bundle of canvas and rope that was the 
tent, and a collection of frying-pans, tea-kettle and 
pots that represented the paraphernalia of a camp 
cook. Two men sat on the front seat, and it would 
have been hard to recognize in the erect, khaki-clad 
figure and bronzed face of the man at the reins the 
invalid who had lain in the chair before the fire 
only a few months before. The high dry air of the 
Western plains was doing its work and the Indian 
evangelist was getting back his strength. 

The train was passing under the grateful shade 
of a great tree that grew beside the road. The 
missionary pointed at it with his whip. 

" Eemember that tree, Dickens ? " he asked. 

His helper twisted his head to get a better look 
at it, and Mr. Wright went on : 

"It was right there that we stopped one day 
last spring, and you lifted me out of the hack and 
laid me down in the grass under that tree to die. 
It sure did look as if the doctors back East were 
going to be able to say c I told you so ' that time, 
didn't it, Dickens ? Well, we have given them the 
slip this time, I reckon, — thank God," he added in 
a lower tone. 

That had been the beginning of an experience 
such as few able-bodied men could face. Despised 
by such white men as he met who were there 
largely to exploit the Indians, avoided by the 
Indians themselves who regarded his motives with 
suspicion and his message with indifference, wel- 
come nowhere, forced to continual moving from 



26 In Camp and Tepee 



place to place — this was the daily record of a battle 
against discouragement, weakness and hardship that 
called for courage, perseverance and a supreme 
faith. Here he was at the end of the summer, 
doing what he had been doing ever since the 
spring, following a flying band of Indians in the 
hitherto vain hope that when they camped at night 
he might find some opening to speak to them. 

The sun was setting and the little caravan had 
come to a standstill ; a moment later the Indian 
wagons turned off the road and swung out in the 
inevitable semicircle facing the east. The mission- 
ary drew off to one side and with his helper began 
preparations for supper while the life of the Indian 
camp grew and hummed beside him. Tents were 
put up, each one fronting towards the sunrise, the 
horses were hobbled and turned out to graze, two 
old women bending under incredible loads of wood 
came up from the creek-bed and laid the great 
camp-fire in the centre of the camp opposite the 
tent of Eahwatz, the priest of Mescal, and every- 
where were the shouting, playing children and the 
snarling, fighting dogs. 

When the workers 5 supper was over the swift 
twilight of the Southwest had ended and already 
the Indian tents were glowing like jewels through 
the darkness. Soon the camp-fire would be lit, and 
the Comanche men and women would gather about 
it. Mr. Wright wondered if they would let him 
join the circle or whether they would freeze him 
out with their baffling silence. A dark figure left 



First Beginnings 



27 



one of the glowing tents as the missionary watched, 
and crossed the camp. A moment later a flicker 
of light appeared, wavered in and out of existence a 
few times, grew into a flare and the camp-fire 
kindled into flame. The red glow stole the radiance 
from the line of tents, brought into prominence the 
shrouded wagons, the sleeping dogs, and beyond, 
the hobbled horses standing at gaze. 

With laughter and the musical cadence of soft 
Comanche the people were gathering. Mr. Wright 
crossed over and joined the group at the fire, to be 
welcomed by the usual smiles and ceremonious 
greetings. They were always outwardly so 
friendly, this inscrutable tribe. Presently came the 
slight blanketed figure of isahwatz, chief of Mes- 
cal, to give his greeting. A young girl from the 
government school, his niece and adopted daughter, 
acted as interpreter while the chief and the mission- 
ary talked. A strange necklace about the Indian's 
neck caught Mr. Wright's eye. It seemed made of 
flat round disks of some brown substance like 
shrunken hardened leather. 

" What is it ? " he asked. 

Nahwatz lifted his small brown hand and laid 
hold of the largest disk with a strangely reverent 
gesture. 

" It is Mescal, my god," he answered. 

The missionary looked into the luminous eyes 
and noted the evident strength of the Mescal 
leader's face and a sense of revulsion seized him. 

" If that bean which you have picked and which 



28 In Camp and Tepee 



you can carry on a string about your neck is your 
god," he said, " tell me, my friend, does your 
Mescal-god tell you where you came from or where 
you are going when you die ? " 

Nahwatz' eyes narrowed and Mr. Wright felt 
again the ice of Indian reserve as he answered : 

" This Mescal shows me wonderful things." 
Then he turned his shoulder on the missionary 
nor would he speak again. 

* * * * # 

The summer was gone and valuable time was 
flying. Mr. Wright felt he must have something 
definite to report to the Board at home at the end 
of his first year's work, and such being the case he 
dared take no more time for this work among the 
Comanches where neither government agent nor 
Indian gave him the slightest encouragement. He 
naturally turned next to the prisoner band of 
Apaches held at Fort Sill in the heart of the 
Comanche country. Nothing was being done for 
them by any church, yet the military authorities, 
who were in complete control, refused him ad- 
mittance. Thus, at last, sick at heart, he had 
been obliged to turn his back on this his first field 
of effort. 

Once more in his hack with his helper, he set 
his face towards Red Moon, an encampment one 
hundred and fifty miles out on the prairie. All 
day long they jogged and rattled on, out of the 
restful shadow of the Witchita Mountains, over 
that borderland of the prairies that lies between 



First Beginnings 



2 9 



the mountains and the Washita Kiver, flat and 
covered with lush mesquite grass like a firm velvet 
nap under foot, then over the Washita to the red 
sand of the prairies themselves, heaving and roll- 
ing like the waves of a great sea far, far out of 
sight. Towards the close of the second day, they 
pulled up on the edge of one of those prairie swells 
and saw before them and below, beside the curving 
bank of Cobb Creek, a cluster of brick buildings 
that must be a government school. It was Satur- 
day night and as it was never Mr. Wright's custom 
to travel on Sunday he said to his friend, " We will 
camp here and to-morrow I'll go down there and 
see if I can talk to the children." 

Some twenty-odd years before the Government 
had found certain members of the Cheyenne and 
Arapahoe tribes absolutely unamenable to any re- 
straint, forcible or otherwise ; and, as these in- 
corrigibles were continually stirring up the more 
peaceably minded Indians, the authorities had de- 
termined to segregate them and their families, and 
allot to them some place sufficiently distant to pre- 
vent any further outbreak. John H. Seger vol- 
unteered to take them out and act as their agent, 
and scorning all military protection, he had brought 
them here to this little valley and allotted them on 
the surrounding land. It had been no easy task to 
keep them quiet, those turbulent war-hardened 
men, many of whom had fought against Custer. 
At first it had to be superior brute force, as this 
was all that they would recognize, and Mr. Seger, 



30 In Camp and Tepee 



although a man of unusual muscular strength, was 
often obliged to tax all his resourcefulness to the 
utmost to maintain this ascendancy. In the end 
he conquered. 

When Mr. Wright appeared that Sunday morn- 
ing he found a cordial welcome awaiting him from 
this agent, who gladly gave him his chance to 
speak to the children. Mr. Seger was much inter- 
ested and drew him on to talk of his work, his 
plans for the future, and what he hoped to do. 

" I want an opportunity to work among these 
Indians," said Mr. Wright. "If I could only have 
a fair start, I have money back of me to build a 
church and set up a permanent mission. Just now 
I am looking for the place to begin." 

"Why not locate here?" asked Mr. Seger. 
"This is an issuing station for government ra- 
tions and supplies. All this band must come in 
every other week, and then there is always a 
large camp here. Apply for some of this school 
land for your mission and I will help you as far 
as lies in my power." 

The first step was to gain the consent of the 
Indians, and Mr. Seger called a council to meet 
with him and Mr. Wright the following day in 
the agency office. The agent and the missionary 
were the first to enter the bare room with its circle 
of painted chairs, and Mr. Wright had every op- 
portunity to study the head-men of the Cheyenne 
and Arapahoe tribes as they entered on silent moc- 
casined feet. They took their places for the most 



First Beginnings 



3 1 



part in silence, save for the monosyllabic " How " 
of greeting to the agent, and only once or twice 
did a smile like a gleam of wintry sunshine rest 
on any one of the hard, lined faces. Mr. Wright 
felt a sinking sense of oppression that he strove to 
put from him. 

After an introductory speech by Mr. Seger the 
missionary was able to lay his plan before them, 
pleading the advantages to them and to their 
children. When he ended, they talked among 
themselves, in harsh guttural utterances that 
seemed to fit the grim stoicism of battle-scarred 
faces. The missionary's mind leaped back to the 
Comanches he had left, with the gracious courtesy 
of their ceremonial manners, the rhythmic swing 
of their soft language and their undisguised en- 
thusiasm when they talked among themselves. 
He fixed his eyes on the proudly indifferent face 
of the spokesman who rose to give the answer, 
and there was little hope or enthusiasm in his 
heart for work among such a people as these 
Northern Indians. 

"We think it is good for the children," said the 
Cheyenne leader. " They must live in the white 
man's houses, they must dress in the white man's 
dress and talk the white man's talk. It is best 
that they also learn about the white man's God. 
But we live in the Indian way and we hold by the 
Indian gods. For us you can do nothing. TTe are 
better as we are." 

The Cheyenne chief might give his ultimatum 



32 In Camp and Tepee 



with all the pride and self-assurance possible, but 
Mr. Wright would not be daunted. He seized 
eagerly on the narrow foothold given him among 
the school children and then reached out to lay hold 
of the attention of the men and women of the 
camps, and to arouse a longing for what his friend- 
ship and his message might give them. He soon 
found that with these Indians, in spite of his Indian 
blood, he had to make his way as a teacher of the 
white man's religion against the mixture of fear, 
suspicion and contempt with which the white man 
was regarded. " Coyotes " the Cheyennes called 
the conquering race, naming them for the despi- 
cable little prairie-wolves who howl at a safe dis- 
tance while men are up and stirring, but who sneak 
silently into camp at night to devour everything 
while they are asleep and helpless. The Arapahoe 
proverb was even more scathing. " White man — 
liar" was the tense summary. 

Every week after the services at the school were 
over the missionary would harness his team and set 
out over the hard roads to the distant camps. 
Sometimes they knew in advance of his coming 
and could pack up their belongings and get away, 
leaving their deserted tepees and silent shades as 
an eloquent witness of their hostile avoidance of 
him. Occasionally he surprised them when he 
pulled in at night, tired and dusty, but happy in 
his success in finding them. Then would follow an 
evening of going from group to group, and from 
tepee to tepee. Often when he entered with his 



First Beginnings 



33 



interpreter by his side all laughter and talk would 
cease, each task would be instantly laid down and 
the whole family would sit as if frozen into stony 
immobility. He knew that they could hear, al- 
though they strove to seem as deaf, and he talked 
on. Often thoughts were startled into strange 
channels under the stony mask by the bold chal- 
lenge of his attack on the citadel of their traditional 
ideas. 

In the morning he would perhaps find that they 
had all slipped out while he slept and had again 
escaped him. At such times he never gave up, but 
followed their trail across the prairie, pulling in at 
night, gay, friendly and determined to help. It 
seemed so little that he could do, only to carry 
wood or water for some feeble old woman, to give 
an ague-shaken man a dose of quinine, or to share 
the drinking water in his keg with the mother of a 
flock of thirsty children if the camp was in the 
" Alkali Country." So October passed and a part 
of November, and little by little he won his place. 
The Indians grew to know that here was one man 
who was persistently following them, not for what 
he could get, but for what he could give. Keen 
observers of character that they were, they came at 
last to believe what seemed impossible at first, that 
nothing lay behind his kindliness but love for them 
and a wish to serve. He had to leave them for the 
winter months because he dared not face the ex- 
posure of camp-life during such a stormy season, 
but he knew that he left a few staunch friends who 



34 In Camp and Tepee 



would miss him and look eagerly for his return. 
This was an astonishing achievement, which only 
those can appreciate who know the years of dis- 
couragement which form the usual introduction to 
Indian mission work. 

****** 
During this first winter's absence from his field 
he made a significant friendship. He had been 
doing evangelistic work, and he was called to 
Dallas, Texas, to preach for Walter C. Eoe, pastor 
of a Presbyterian church. His first impression of 
the small, frail man who met him was almost 
eclipsed by the sparkling, vivid personality of his 
dark-eyed wife, but before the first evening had 
ended, this thought of the fragile ill-health of the 
man had been blotted out by other and more dom- 
inating characteristics. Mr. Wright found himself 
studying the minister's face. There was quiet 
strength in the firm chin, sweetness and sympathy 
in the lines about the mouth, and intellectual power 
in the high forehead ; but it was to the eyes that 
the glance returned again and again, eyes that were 
keen, direct and compelling, yet with a wealth of 
whimsy humor lurking in their depths. A month 
of working shoulder to shoulder showed him the 
real man. Of ready sympathy and never-failing 
tact, easily adjusted to another's point of view, yet 
ever uncompromising in the right, a born fighter 
who rejoiced in a struggle or a difficult task, he 
was a friend after the Indian missionary's own 
heart. 



First Beginnings 35 



In the councils of war held after the meetings 
with Mrs. Roe and her sister Mrs. Page who was 
then visiting them, Mr. Wright came to appreciate 
how the power of imagination and the poetic fervor 
of the wife supplemented and completed the min- 
ister's work. " What a combination they would 
make for Indian work," he thought again and 
again. He determined not to lose his touch with 
them when the month's work was ended, and ac- 
cordingly in November, 1896, when the little stone 
building of the Columbian Memorial was ready for 
occupancy he called his new friends to assist him in 
its dedication. 

He had returned to Colony in May where the 
mission had been located on a corner of the school 
land. His first work had been the superintend- 
ing of the digging of a well, for as the Indians 
put it, the first gift that was given them was " the 
water of God." Then had come weeks of travel- 
ling from camp to camp, chatting, sympathizing, 
advising and teaching his grown-up children, and 
always in his spare moments directing the work on 
the little church. Now it was finished and he 
could point it out to Dr. and Mrs. Roe, when they 
came for the dedication. So he stopped his team 
on the top of the prairie swell to let them get their 
first glimpse of the busy scene. In the centre was 
the new church with its red roof and pointed spire. 
To the left lay the brick buildings of the Colony 
school. Under a clump of black-jack trees before 
the church was the well and Mr. Wright's camp — 



36 In Camp and Tepee 



a tent, a tiny wooden shed containing his stove and 
dining outfit, an arbor enclosing a few feet of 
space, and near by his wagon and little granary. 
Not far away was the Indian camp, the scattering, 
smoke-tipped white cones of the tepees filling the 
prairie-hollow. 

The following morning saw the beginning of 
four laborious days for all three, gathering up the 
loose ends of the season's work and reaping the 
harvest that months of patient camp-visiting had 
sown. There were regular meetings held in the 
little stone church every evening, beside others 
during the day whenever they could be attended, 
and three services on Sunday. There was much to 
be done and every one had his share, visitors, mis- 
sionary and even the Indians themselves. The high 
winds of winter had already begun and before 
almost every service the heaps of sand had to be 
swept out of the church and the chairs set in even 
rows. This task the Indian women had taken as 
their share, while the men hauled the wood to keep 
the stove-fire going. Then, even when the north- 
ers swept moaning across the valley " with lighted 
lamps and cheery little stove," wrote Mrs. Roe, 
" we could bid defiance to wind and darkness. 
On the right (of the audience room) were some 
fifty of the older Indian girls, their dark faces and 
bright eyes showing keen interest. On the left the 
Indian boys in their uniforms, so well-behaved and 
attentive as to cast some reproach upon similar 
gatherings of their white brothers. Behind the 



First Beginnings 



37 



girls almost to the rear were the white people" 
(employees at the school) . . . "and back of 
the boys sat the camp Indians in blankets and 
moccasins, the women, some of them bright and 
pretty in gala dress with their babies on their 
backs, and some of them with faces dark with su- 
perstition and ignorance, and written over with 
lines of evil. In front was the ' baby organ,' and 
the pretty pulpit made fair with flowers . . . 
and Mr. Wright, his dark face aglow with joy and 
earnestness, a big Arapahoe Indian standing on his 
right and his excellent Cheyenne interpreter at his 
left — such in general was the scene at each evening 
service. 

" We drove with Mr. Wright and his interpreter 
over the prairies to seek his people in their homes," 
she goes on to say : " and each night after the serv- 
ice we went down to their tepees and gathering 
around the camp-fire, would tell Bible stories to 
which they will listen spellbound. . . . These 
Indians are ignorant and full of superstition, but I 
am told that many are dissatisfied with their own 
so-called religion and are ready to learn from the 
White Man's Book." 

At the close of the meetings the church was or- 
ganized with twenty-two members. Yet only a 
little more than a year's effort had been put in 
among these seemingly unresponsive Indians. Such 
a result is the abiding proof of the untiring activity, 
the tact and the wisdom of the man who accom- 
plished it. 



II 



LEAVES FEOM DK. KOE'S DIAEY 

THE spring of 1897 saw two new workers 
in the growing field. During the winter 
a break had come in Dr. Eoe's health and 
the doctors had imperatively ordered life in the 
open air. Mr. Wright on hearing of it had sat 
down, and, mindful of his own experience and 
hoping to bring about the " combination " he had 
seen in imagination the year before, had written to 
the Eeformed Church Board. He touched on the 
growing field, the need of more help, and suggested 
his friend and his wife as ideal timber of which 
to make missionaries. The suggestion had been 
adopted and Dr. and Mrs. Eoe had entered the 
work in April, just as the camping season was be- 
ginning. 

By the mere accident of their coming at this 
time the new raw workers were plunged into a 
first experience that taught them the every-day 
life of their Indians through and through. They 
learned its lure and its charm. They learned too 
its hardship and its horror. It was not such camp- 
ing as they would ever have again, for after the 
parsonage was built there was always a sense of a 
home back of them to which they could go if worst 

3B 



Leaves From Dr. Roe's Diary 39 

came to worst. Now, like the Indians, they had 
nothing but their tent and their wagon, no food 
but such as they could carry in the chuck-box. 

They could understand then, from the very be- 
ginning, the glorious liberty of wide-rolling dis- 
tances. They had felt the tremendous significance 
of the meadow-lark's note when a bird and a man 
seem the only living beings in a world of earth and 
sky. They knew the glints and shadows of fire- 
light at night and the golden glory of the moon. 
They knew too the fascination of nights under the 
open sky, lulling oneself to slumber by watching 
the marching stars and listening for the night 
sounds and the night silences. 

They learned also the largeness of the other side 
of camp-life. Long drives against the wind, and 
sand-storms that cut the face and beat upon the 
body till every nerve cried out, days of storm 
when the clothing was always wet and even such 
beds as could be made up in a wagon were neither 
warm nor dry, long hot journeys without water, 
nights when the wind tore down the tent over 
their heads and even the sleep of exhaustion was 
impossible. They had known and felt it all, and, 
what was even more important, their stoical Indian 
comrades of the trail knew they had. 

Then in August came what later proved a valu- 
able experience. Dr. Roe was taken with typhoid 
fever, and Mrs. Roe, alone without a nurse, strug- 
gled through relapse after relapse, learning some 
of the horrors of sickness in camp — some but not 



40 In Camp and Tepee 



all. For an Indian as desperately sick as that, 
without the timely aid given the white man, the 
only outcome would have been death. But the 
missionary, through the kindness of Mr. Seger, 
was moved into the boys' dormitory in the fall, 
where he crept back to life again. Mrs. Eoe had 
seen enough, however, to give her a vision of the 
needs of the camp-women over which she pondered 
for months till with growing experience she could 
mature a plan for aid. 

"When the time came to settle in the permanent 
mission, the new workers entered their field with a 
knowledge and understanding of their people and a 
full realization of the pleasures and trials, the 
struggles and the problems of their lives, born of 
the months in camp , such as years of external con- 
tact could never have given. As time went on and 
problems grew in complexity they saw more and 
more clearly the value of this experience. 

The parsonage was built and ready for occupancy 
that winter, a square red stone building, uncom- 
promising in every line, hunching its red roof on 
its stone shoulders and staring unwinkingly down 
the whole length of the mission compound to the 
church. With the new base of operations came 
new demands, and those incident to the establish- 
ing of a permanent mission were far different from 
those of the itinerant missionary. Near at hand 
was the school where the Indians must place their 
children as soon as they were five years old and 
keep them until they were eighteen if they wished 



Leaves From Dr. Roe's Diary 41 

to draw the rations of beef, coffee, sugar, flour, and 
baking-powder on which they depended for sup- 
port. Here was much work for the missionaries. 

Every two weeks on the flat before the house 
and crowning the hill behind were the clustering 
tepees of the Indian camps ; for, although the 
Government was doing everything to encourage 
farming on the allotments of one hundred and 
sixty acres each which every man, woman, and 
child possessed, these conservatives clung to their 
old life, preferring to lease their lands. In these 
camps, to which the workers gladly and eagerly 
went, they learned something which caused a 
hasty departure from accepted method. Talking 
through interpreters is at best unsatisfactory and 
the accepted rule was to acquire the languages 
necessary to communicate freely with all comers. 
To learn both Cheyenne and Arapahoe at one and 
the same time was manifestly impossible; there- 
fore Mr. Wright began to study Cheyenne with 
the assistance of his excellent interpreter, Frank 
Hamilton, while Dr. and Mrs. Roe undertook the 
Arapahoe. 

But at the very outset this plan was thwarted 
by the strange indomitable jealousy that existed 
between the two tribes. Although, as far as the 
knowledge of the white man, or the memory of 
the Indian can tell, the Cheyennes and the Arapa- 
hoes have always been allied tribes, sharing the 
chase, the feasting, and the starvation, fighting the 
same enemies with equal fierceness, and holding 



4 2 



In Camp and Tepee 



together through thick and thin, there has never 
been the slightest tendency towards amalgamation. 
The two languages are utterly different, showing 
as wide a divergence of origin as do French and 
Russian, and the customs are equally at variance. 
As the workers hoped for success they must keep 
this knowledge before them. When Arapahoe 
was the subject of their study the Chej^enne school 
children, even, would receive no advances from the 
workers and the tepees of the Cheyenne camps 
were closed against their coming. 

As the learning of an Indian language is at best 
a matter of years, this was a state of things not to be 
overlooked, so the missionaries wisely fell back on 
interpreters for church services and long-continued, 
serious use, and on the sign-language for other 
occasions when they wished to talk. This gesture- 
language is common to all tribes that depended on 
hunting for food, since in their migrations as they 
followed the game they came constantly in contact 
in a peaceful way, and the need of a means of com- 
munication was continually making itself felt. As 
a result there was produced one system of signs 
which was understood and used by all and which 
still survives among the plains Indians from the 
Rockies to the Mississippi, and from the Arctic 
circle to the Gulf. The missionaries have made 
extensive use of it. Dr. Eoe and his wife found 
that it served not only as a means of communica- 
tion with their own tribes and the neighboring 
Kiowas, Caddoes and Comanches, but that it 



Leaves From Dr. Roe's Diary 43 



stamped them everywhere among the Indians as 
friends. 

During the winter months when roads were bad 
and travelling at all times dangerous, and often 
impossible, the twofold work of the new mission 
at Colony took up all the workers' time. There 
were the Sunday-school classes and social meetings 
with the school children, shy, silent little beings at 
first, slow to give their confidence, but when that 
was gained, eager to show a winsome devotion. 
Then, every two weeks, there were a few days of 
the ever-fascinating camp-work. 

A few of the Indians were learning to come to 
the house and found a never ceasing wonder and 
delight in its various furnishings. The Navajo rug 
on the hall floor they liked because other Indians 
had made it, the round game-shield on the wall 
and the buffalo robe thrown over the chest by the 
stairs had the charm of the familiar, but they liked 
best the stranger things, the chairs that rocked, the 
flowers growing in the windows, the many pictures 
and the " big box " in the parlor that gave a jan- 
gling cry when a curious hand was laid on its white 
" teeth." 

But those who came to the house were few and 
issue- week usually meant visits to the tepees and 
long, solemn talks over trifles with an occasional 
word of encouragement and uplift brought skillfully 
in, Again it would be merely such work as Dr. 
Eoe describes in a letter home : 

"We are experiencing a terrific blizzard which 



44 I n Camp and Tepee 



has followed an exceptionally prolonged period of 
severe weather. It is issue-week and the Indians, 
having come in to get their rations, are camped on 
the flat below us. The snow is driven almost level 
before a fierce wind, and neither man nor beast can 
be exposed to its fury without intense suffering. 
There are two Indian ponies cowering under the lee 
of the church, their backs white with unmelted 
snow. An Indian man has just passed, hurrying 
along the road, bending against the storm, with his 
brilliant blanket drawn up over his head. Occasion- 
ally we see a woman moving about among the 
dingy tepees, and now and then a child ventures 
out from the school to visit his people. The appear- 
ance of the camp is uninviting enough. The tepees, 
which ordinarily look approximately white, now 
present their blackened cones against the white 
snow. A few are protected by wind-breaks made 
of the dried stalks of the tall weeds which grow in 
our river-bottoms, bound together and standing up- 
right in a circle. One of these structures has been 
unable to withstand the force of the wind, and has 
blown over against the tepee in the centre. Beside 
each tepee stands the wagon of its occupant. Most 
of the ponies have sought protection behind the 
hills or in the ravines, but one team is cowering 
close behind the wind-break. They are but frail 
shelters — these hastily constructed tepees ; only a 
frame of poles covered by an inferior quality of 
domestic, with an aperture at the top through 
which the smoke from the fire within escapes. And 




Inside a Windbreak. 



Leaves From Dr. Roe's Diary 



45 



yet they are surprisingly warm when the thrift of 
the squaw has provided an ample supply of wood. 
Unfortunately foresight is not a quality which is 
highly developed in the Indian, and only a few 
minutes ago I saw an old Indian woman stagger- 
ing through the storm, carrying upon her back a 
heavy load of wood which she had probably brought 
a mile or more from the creek bottom. I can just 
imagine how the inmates of the tepees look, — men, 
women, children and dogs, all huddled around the 
fire in silent misery. 

" There is little we can do for them such a day 
as to-day. Occasionally they come to the house to 
get warm, and we seat them around the dining- 
room stove with picture-books and magazines to 
entertain them. A little while ago two boys came 
in half frozen, and just before dinner our presiding 
genius, a little deaf and dumb boy, Issana-han, 
came for shelter and was very glad to share our 
meal with us." 

As Dr. Roe goes on to say, they were not con- 
tent with merely trying to make their people com- 
fortable, for Sundays saw them all gathered in the 
little church and slowly and painstakingly the mis- 
sionary explained the "way of life." Gradually 
the Indians were coming to understand, though 
often the ludicrous jostled the beautiful and true in 
the short space of a single service. For an instance, 
one evening service began with the baptism of ten 
of the school children, an impressive scene to all 
who watched their earnest bright faces. Then a 



46 In Camp and Tepee 



young Christian mother brought her baby to be 
baptized. Her husband started her to the front 
promising to follow, but at the last minute his 
courage gave out and he remained sheepishly be- 
hind. The missionary's quick eye took in the situ- 
ation and the service was adapted to suit this case. 
But scarcely was it well under way when a tall 
Indian strode up to the platform with his little 
three-year-old son in his arms— and he wanted the 
child baptized. He urged and pleaded and talked 
to and through the interpreter, so determined was 
he that his boy, as well as Mary's baby, should be 
protected by this " good medicine." It was with 
the greatest difficulty that he was persuaded to sit 
down while Mr. Eoe explained that parents, them- 
selves Christians, might bring their little ones and 
give them thus to God, but he was not permitted 
to baptize any others. It was not till the anxious 
father at last understood that he would permit the 
service for Mary's baby to continue. 

Often during the winters of the Southwest come 
strange spells of golden weather as if " the sleeping 
earth were dreaming of summer," as the Indians 
say, when the sky is a higher, whiter blue, and the 
waves of dead prairie-grass stretch away tawny in 
the sunlight, when a passing wagon startles the 
meadow-larks into an unexpected burst of song. 
On such days the Indians in distant camps were 
learning to watch for the coming of the mission- 
aries with food and medicines for the sick, never- 
failing comfort for the sad at heart, and cheer for 



Leaves From Dr. Roe's Diary 47 



all. It was small wonder that the white-covered 
hack always had an eager welcome, among the 
Cheyennes at least. All was likely to be excite- 
ment and bustle for fair weather usually meant 
" hand-games " or dancing in the evening. Some 
of the women would be skinning and cutting up 
the animal destined for the evening's feast, others 
would be putting up the great tepee for the gath- 
ering. The young girls might be " throwing the long 
reeds," a favorite game with them, and one in which 
they are all proficient. Children and dogs in yell- 
ing herds careered among the tents. The mission- 
aries visited tepee after tepee, some comparatively 
neat, others disgusting in their dirt and unsightli- 
ness, everywhere to be greeted with friendliness 
and joy. Many an urgent invitation would be 
given to remain to the feast w T hich duties at 
Colony would prevent their accepting, but the love 
and confidence in the dark faces was touching- to 
see. 

It was on such a trip as this that Dr. Eoe first 
saw the little deaf and dumb boy of whom the let- 
ter quoted makes mention. Later he wrote of the 
incident and more fully of the child under the title 
of his English name, Carl High "Walker. 

" Our first introduction to him," he writes, " was 
on the banks of the Washita near Little Medicine's 
camp. We had just pitched our tents and staked 
our horses when we noticed two pairs of bright 
eyes peering out of the bushes that fringed the 
stream. When we beckoned they disappeared only 



48 In Camp and Tepee 



to reappear at some other point, but when we re- 
turned to our work, and paid them no more atten- 
tion, both eyes and owners emerged a little dis- 
tance down-stream among the great cotton-woods. 
Two lithe little figures, brown as chestnuts, ham- 
pered in their swift movements only by the 
fiutterings of two little calico shirts, much be- 
grimed by the touch of Washita mud, and sadly 
tattered by the unfriendly grasp of the green- 
briars. Two tangled shocks of black hair had been 
parted and carelessly put up in two flying braids. 
As with a piece of rope and switches from the 
willow bush they played at wild horse, that peren- 
nial game of Indian childhood, flitting to and fro 
in the twilight among the boles of the great trees, 
it seemed as though the reign of Pan had returned 
and that those dancing forms were fauns with fur- 
tipped ears and soulless natures. 

" I next saw the little fellow in camp at the issue 
station, and learned that he was the son of the old 
Cheyenne chief, High Walker, who was dying of 
consumption. His mother was dead, and worst of 
all he himself was deaf and dumb. A pitiful lot 
this, even among white people with their institu- 
tions for the orphan and the afflicted ; but amid 
the barbarism and poverty of an Indian camp, how 
hopeless ! My heart went out to him in his need, 
and I determined to try to offset some, at least, of 
the miseries of his condition. 

" He had one advantage over a white child 
afflicted in the same way. This was the wonderful 



Leaves From Dr. Roe's Diary 49 



sign-language of the plains Indian, a means of 
communication in which the boy was peculiarly ex- 
pert. Accordingly, when I next saw him, I pointed 
to him and then at myself and then hooked my two 
first fingers together. This meant, ' You and I are 
friends.' He raised his hand with the first finger 
and thumb extended, the other fingers closed, and 
threw his hand forward and down, at the same 
time bringing thumb and finger together. This 
meant 'Yes,' but when I approached with hand 
outstretched to shake hands, fear crept into the 
dark eyes and he dodged back among the tepees 
and was gone. For several days this was repeated, 
each time with increasing confidence on his part. 
At last I laid a nickel in my outstretched palm, — 
a base expedient to win a friend, I must admit — 
and wavering between fear and desire, the little 
fellow crept up, snatched the coin and sped away, 
his swift feet winged with terror. 

" Soon, however, he became assured that my de- 
signs were entirely friendly and his confidence 
grew apace. One day he crept timidly into the 
open door of the parsonage and stood looking in 
wonder at the great alligator skin stretched out 
against the wall. I described to him the creature 
from which it came, and then introduced him to 
many of the mysteries of the 'medicine house, 3 as 
he always called our home. After that he ap- 
propriated us and ours as his own. ISTo sooner 
would High Walker's wagon reach the issue-camp 
than the little fellow would slip down and make 



50 In Camp and Tepee 



for the parsonage which straightway became his 
headquarters. The hungry little stomach was al- 
ways filled, and then he would explore the won- 
ders of our simple belongings. The reflection of 
his own unkempt little figure in the mirror always 
amazed and amused him. His swift hands would 
fairly fly with childish questions. 

" When asked where he lived, he would answer, 
4 At the medicine house.' He assumed responsi- 
bility for all our interests. One day he dragged 
me to the back door to show me that the lock was 
broken. Another, he came flying to inform me 
that the fence was broken and the 'medicine 
horses ' were out. Once I found him beating my 
dog and rebuked him, explaining that the creature 
was my friend. Later the animal was sick with 
consumption and I instructed my white boy to 
shoot it. Presently here came Carl, in a whirl of 
excitement and indignation, his hands fairly flash- 
ing the message, ' That wicked white boy has 
killed your friend dog.' I tried to explain to him 
the reasons for the dog's death, telling him of the 
strong little bugs that sit down in people's lungs 
and make them die, but it was not with complete 
success, for he went away evidently cherishing 
secret animosity towards ' that white boy ' whom 
he always regarded with jealous eyes. 

" He was sure to be on hand at 4 chuck away 5 
time and boasted that he was ' filled up ' three 
times each day, an unusual experience in his neg- 
lected life. We taught him that it was ' the white 



Leaves From Dr. Roe's Diary 51 



man's road ' to knock on entering a door and he, 
6 to make assurance doubly sure,' would announce 
his exit as well as his entrance by a resounding rap. 

" Sometimes he would be gone for several weeks 
and then suddenly would reappear and take pos- 
session of us, a veritable elf of barbarism, instinct 
with the spirit of the boundless prairie. 

"But soon a new element entered Carl's life. 
Education, an ogre-like figure at best to exuberant 
boyhood, laid its firm hand on the flitting figure, 
drew its irksome walls of circumvallation around 
the wandering feet and buckled its harness on the 
mind as untrained as the boy's own spotted pony. 
Old High Walker's spirit slipped out of its emaci- 
ated tenement, to tread, as he would have told you, 
the Milky Way, that spirit road that leads to the 
Happy Hunting Grounds of the Indian's future 
life. The father's will had made Mr. Seger, super- 
intendent of the government school, the boy's 
guardian, and in course of time Carl, shorn of the 
flying braids and clad in prosaic uniform, took his 
place in the routine of school life." Here Dr. 
Eoe's vivid account of Carl abruptly ends, inter- 
rupted, no doubt, by pressure of work. 

But the experiment of school life proved for 
Carl High Walker a failure. The industrial work 
he took to aptly enough, as imitation and the 
quick flexibility of his movements stood him very 
well in lieu of ears, but the tasks of the class-room 
were to him meaningless and irksome, and only 
productive of outbursts of temper and impish mis- 



52 In Camp and Tepee 



chief. There was no teacher at the school who had 
sufficient knowledge or time to instruct the little 
fellow through the difficult medium of the sign- 
language. The child was likely to grow up into a 
little savage, but fortunately the missionary inter- 
vened on behalf of his young friend. Arrange- 
ments were made that Carl should study his lessons 
at the " medicine house," and every day the child 
would come and take his place at one side of the 
missionary's desk. 

Then would follow a happy hour while his 
" medicine-friend " told him of the books that 
would be his friends too and talk to his heart 
whenever he was lonely and sad, if he would have 
a strong heart " to push, push along the hard read- 
ing and writing road." They would talk of the 
great world he lived in, and the birds and the 
flowers, of the mountains he had never seen, and 
the " great water " and the lands beyond until 
Carl's eyes grew big with wonder and his eager 
hands flew with his questions. And later the mis- 
sionary drew him on into the bigger things of life, 
telling him of his own heart and soul, of what it 
meant to be a man, of the great difference between 
right and wrong, of his brotherhood to all the 
people about him, of the duty of love and of God. 
Little by little the fetters fell away from the im- 
prisoned spirit until Carl faced life to find it large 
and full of meaning even for him. 

*Jf *5f *5£ "X* 

With the closing of the school the door of op- 



Leaves From Dr. Roe's Diary 53 

portunity at Colony seemed to close also. The 
Indians still came into the valley on alternate 
Saturdays for the issue of rations, it was true, but 
since the children were not at school to act as a 
drawing-card, their stay was usually a short one. 
Often the missionary had the discouraging ex- 
perience of putting the last touch upon his sermon 
with great care and enthusiasm on Saturday, in- 
spired by the sight from his study window of bus- 
tling camp and crowded tepee, only to awaken on 
Sunday morning just in time to watch the drag- 
ging tepee poles of the last Indian wagon convey- 
ing the remnant of his audience over a prairie swell 
and out of sight. 

At other times he would be more successful but 
always the summer Sundays were very distinctive 
in their demands as compared with the routine of 
winter work. 

" The minister on the frontier," he writes several 
years later of just such a typical day, " where all is 
rough and tumble and executive details are inex- 
tricably mixed up with theology and devotion, 
often thinks with envy of his Eastern brother with 
his systematic Sabbath day and smoothly organized 
work. It is a great advantage to pass quickly from 
the study to the pulpit full of one's message and 
confident of the cooperation of a harmonious serv- 
ice and the attendance of an inspiring audience. 
Such is not the lot of the Indian missionary, as the 
following picture of one day's experience will 
show : Soon after breakfast he started through the 



54 I n Camp and Tepee 



broiling heat to arrange for his morning service, 
for the Indian is very susceptible to immediate im- 
pulses, and church announcements a week old are 
ancient and untrustworthy fables to his easily de- 
flected good intentions. Down at Black Wolf's 
camp is one of the Christian girls who is fighting 
a losing battle with tuberculosis, and so the mis- 
tress of the manse puts into his hands some ' white 
man's food ' that may tempt the whimsical appe- 
tite. He goes around by the drug-store to leave a 
message for the doctor about a sick woman, and 
the clerk, a stalwart young Christian, opens the 
door and tells with enthusiasm of the last baseball 
victory of the nine he captains, and how, in spite 
of great pressure, he had refused to play a Sunday 
game. While they talk a railroad surveyor from 
the tents near by — for even the quiet little Indian 
valley is threatened by this symptom of progress — 
strolls in through the half -open door and demands 
a glass of soda-water, only to be met by the clerk's 
astounding statement that such things are not sold 
on Sunday. Evidently the long, up-hill fight for 
Sabbath observance is beginning to tell. But the 
surveyor is not a Sabbatarian, for he ejaculates the 
name of Jesus Christ in an impatient oath, where- 
upon the parson remarks, 6 Yes, we try to serve 
Jesus Christ in this little valley, and if we can't 
give you cold drinks, we should be very glad to 
have all you boys come down to the English serv- 
ice to-night ; ' and sure enough they all came. 
" Then, across the fields to Wautan's camp, ar- 



Leaves From Dr. Roe's Diary 55 

ranging for a Cheyenne interpreter on the way, a 
little visit with the sick girl, an invitation to the 
inmates of each tepee to the service, through the 
cornfield to tell Julia and Star Woman, and then 
around by Good Bear's and Bear Bow's to the 
main Cheyenne camp. Here Big Jake is asked to 
cry the camp, and straightway his trumpet tones 
ring out over the whole valley. Xext the church 
bell must be rung and the church opened up, and 
then over beyond the parsonage to the Arapahoe 
camp. Blind old Cheyenne Chief, whose mislead- 
ing name disguises the fact that he is an Arapahoe, 
invites to the 6 medicine house ' in stentorian voice, 
while the pastor proceeds to hunt up an Arapahoe 
interpreter. 6 Where is Leonard ? ' he asks in the 
sign-language. ' Gone to the Washita,' comes back 
the reply. ' And Hartley ? ' ' Gone to Weather- 
ford.' 'And Jock?' 4 He is lying over there 
sick.' And so through the whole list of English- 
speaking men with the same disappointing results. 
' Mildred, I will have to use you.' A swift ex- 
pression of fear crosses the honest face of our faith- 
ful Mildred, but she says with her slow enuncia- 
tion, ' I can do it for you,' and so that question is 
settled. Then over to the parsonage to wash up, 
and afterwards to the church to meet the gathering 
congregation, stopping at Spotted Bear's camp en 
route to get old blind Kooiss, and lead her by her 
broom-handle cane to the service. All this is not 
very good preparation for a sermon, you think. 
Not so bad after all, for even if he enters the pul- 



56 In Camp and Tepee 



pit with shoes dusty and perspiratory glands un- 
duly active, the pastor has caught some spiritual 
warmth from this advance contact with those 
whom he is to address and he needs patience 
and love more than finish and eloquence for this 
service. 

" Well, here they come — a unique audience, with 
their dark skins, brilliant costumes and moccasined 
feet. The only white people are the mission workers 
and a few school employees and one curious visitor. 
A dozen or so Indian girls who are spending part of 
their vacation at the school come in neatly dressed 
and take their seats near the organ, where they can 
help with the singing. Here comes old Cheyenne 
Chief, whose blind steps little five-year-old White 
Feather is leading with a stick. Yonder is Big 
Jake, whose complete name, Little Big Jake Little 
Medicine, might well satisfy a Spanish don. He 
used to be hostile to us, but last year his favorite 
son died and the grim old man has been different 
ever since. There, with his whole household, is 
Two Babies, who was lately made a policeman and 
who deems it incumbent upon him to uphold the 
claims of religion as well as those of law and order. 
And so we might go through the whole audience 
of thirty-five or forty souls and find in each some- 
thing more profoundly interesting than mere oddity 
of appearance and manners. It is a sweet and in- 
variable compensation in this fishing for souls that 
the dullest personality becomes full of interest to 
the Christian worker. 



Leaves From Dr. Roe's Diary 57 



M Mildred has come and taken her place among 
the women, but where is Ed, the Cheyenne in- 
terpreter? After tedious waiting a messenger is 
sent to camp and returns with the word that Ed 
has just come back from catching his horses, and is 
so hot and tired that he cannot come. There is no 
other interpreter in the house, and all these Chey- 
ennes waiting for the message, so back the mes- 
senger goes and labors so effectively that soon he 
appears followed by the steaming, reluctant Ed. 
The songs have been sung ; Wautan has led in 
prayer ; and now the preacher reads and explains 
the story of the Master coming across the stormy 
waters to rescue His followers ' toiling in rowing.' 
Jesus, our Saviour, Helper, Friend, amid the storms 
of life is the theme, and slowly it is wrought out 
through the interpreters to the attentive audience. 
One must have faith in the power of the "Word 
when it has to be proclaimed in this bungling 
fashion, but experience has taught the presence of 
that power, and we learn to be patient. When 
Cheyenne Chief, a new convert, as yet unbaptized, 
has responded fervently to an invitation to pray, a 
song has been explained and sung and the bene- 
diction pronounced, the little congregation scatters 
to the various camps, and the morning service is 
over. 

" The pastor is planning to preach to the English- 
speaking people at night on a subject suited to 
Christians, and counts on the quiet afternoon to 
complete the preparation of the sermon, but scarcely 



58 In Camp and Tepee 



has he seated himself at his desk when two Indian 
girls arrive with the word that Edna Eidge Bear's 
two days' old baby has most unexpectedly closed 
its eyes on the sordid tepee walls and opened them 
on the Palace of the King. Hartley, the father, is 
away, they say, and Edna wants the pastor to help 
her. So word is sent to Mr. Seger, who instructs 
Wautan to make the rude little coffin, and three 
Indian men are sent to dig the grave. 

" In the interim the 'medicine talker ' sits down 
to prepare a different sermon for the night service, 
for word has come that the surveyor's camp intends 
to turn out en masse, and it is safe to assume that 
their spiritual needs call for something else than the 
edification of saints. So he works away getting 
ready a message fitted to the tempted lives of a lot 
of reckless young men, until word comes that the 
coffin and grave are ready and the mission ' hack ' 
at the door. Hartley has come home now ; and the 
big fellow, his face drawn and heart bursting with 
this sudden grief, looks hopelessly on while the 
women lay amid the blankets in the box the little 
form — so little and so soon spent — neatly wrapped 
in the baby garments that the mother's loving hands 
had made. The pastor nails down the lid, and then 
the low moaning cry from the mother as her little one 
is carried out proves that mother love is no monopoly 
of civilization, and that, as two days since this Indian 
woman tasted its joy, now she drinks the dregs of 
its bitter cup of disappointment. 

" It is but a little company that stands about the 



Leaves From Dr. Roe's Diary 59 



grave — three of the mission workers, three Indian 
men, two sympathizing women, and a few dark- 
eyed children. The heat is intolerable, and the hot 
sand fairly burns the feet. The father, with sup- 
pressed emotion, interprets the Bible passage, and 
after a few words of earnest exhortation, a song is 
sung and then each man takes his turn at the shovel 
until the grave is filled. This is the third time this 
educated father and mother have laid a little one 
to rest. Twice they have hardened their hearts. 
God grant that this time they may yield ! 

" Supper is over and the church bell rings 
cheerily over the valley. It is an interesting 
audience that is gathered as the pastor takes his 
place ; not so large as in the winter, for the school 
has its vacation now, but made up chiefly of live 
young people, among whom may be classed the 
sturdy squad of surveyors who affect the back seats 
because they have no Sunday clothes. The little 
stone church is brightly lighted and the place is 
cheery and homelike. The music is spirited, and all 
join in it. Then the preacher tells of those rulers 
who feared to acknowledge Christ 4 because they 
loved the praise of men more than the praise of 
God,' and urges each soul to line up with Jesus Christ. 
They are good listeners, these young men and 
women of the frontier, and they like plain speak- 
ing. Well, they had it to-night, and more than 
one serious face and earnest hand-grasp encouraged 
the tired pastor to believe that the truth had found 
its mark. 



6o In Camp and Tepee 



" It is sweet to sit on the broad parsonage veranda 
while the valley grows quiet, and the tepees in the 
camp change from golden yellow to ghostly white 
as one by one the lights are put out, and to talk 
over the hopeful signs of the day. Its hardships 
and burdens are forgotten, and one conviction 
stands out, and that is this : it is a glorious thing 
to work with God for the souls of men." 

•* * * # # * 

In April, Mr. Wright had joined them and now 
that the work at Colony had dwindled in volume, 
they rolled out their hacks, fastened the chuck- 
boxes in position, stowed the cots, the suit-cases, 
the tents and the rolls of bedding under the seats, 
and started out for the months in the field. 



m 



EXPANSION 

UP a long hill skirting the valley and the 
strange wind-blown sand-hills, up, up, a 
gradual ascent till suddenly and unex- 
pectedly just at the point when they thought it 
would go on forever they reached the top. Away 
and away the eye leaped to where the rugged out- 
line of the Witchitas lay blue against the hot white 
sky. The prairie rolled before them and behind, 
red of sandstone, gray of sage-brush, yellow of 
waving prairie-grass, and the crawling green line 
of timber marking the few streams and the distant 
Washita — liberty and space in every line. Before, 
far before, were the mountains and the scene of Mr. 
Wright's first unsuccessful venture which now they 
were returning to retrieve. On they went over the 
prairie, hour after hour, with the sharp line of the 
mountains coming ever nearer, till late in the after- 
noon they crossed the treacherous river and turned 
west to the shadow of Eainy Mountain's shaven 
mound where they were to camp for the night. 

The next morning found them early on the road, 
winding through a country growing hourly more 
rough till they passed under the shoulder of Mount 
Scott, rugged giant of the Witchitas, and entered 
the military reservation of Fort Sill with the 

61 



62 In Camp and Tepee 



long low wooden houses crowning each high 
spot of ground where Geronirno's band of Apaches 
were held as prisoners of war. Occasionally they 
passed one of these Indians on the road, and the red 
head-band, the hard face and suspicious hawk-like 
eyes brought to mind the pirates of old tales. So 
on until the long journey came to an end at the 
Comanche school. 

In Mr. Wright's audience one night had been 
the young girl Dorothy, who had once acted as in- 
terpreter for the missionary, and who was the niece 
and adopted daughter of Nahwatz, priest of Mescal 
and the Sun. Her foster-father, being a shrewd 
man, realized the value of a knowledge of English ; 
and with this in mind, had sent her to the school, 
but he had strictly forbidden her to have anything 
to do with the white man's religion. That night, 
however, her curiosity and interest had been at 
once aroused and always when the missionaries 
returned to the school on their various visits to 
Fort Sill, they found this young girl and some of 
her friends awaiting them, shy but eager and in- 
terested. One day Dorothy came to them with pale 
set face but shining eyes and said she wanted to be 
baptized. They asked her if she had told Nahwatz. 

" Yes," she said, " and he is very angry and says 
he will throw me away if I do this thing. But I 
told him I must. I want to be baptized." 

It took time to gain the consent of the Mescal 
leader but finally it was arranged that the service 
should take place under the trees near the mission- 



Expansion 



63 



aries' camp. As a number of the Indians had 
gathered out of curiosity, when the ceremony 
began there was a crowd about the ministers 
and the young girl. On the ground at the back 
crouched Nahwatz, his white medicine-feather float- 
ing softly above his head. He allowed the service 
to proceed a little way and then suddenly he pushed 
through the crowd and confronted the missionaries. 

" You must not go on till you have heard me," 
he said through the interpreter. " Dorothy tells 
me that now, to-day, she is going one way and I 
am going another. While we live we can look 
into each other's faces, but when we die the ways 
go ever apart and we shall never meet again. I 
cannot have Dorothy walk in one road while I walk 
in another. I want to go with Dorothy. I don't 
know the road but Dorothy does. Your guide- 
book there" — and he pointed to the little testa- 
ment in the worker's hand — " I can't read it, but 
she will teach me. I don't know what I am to do 
in this new road, but she will show me. Take me 
too if you must take her. I cannot walk in the 
old road while Dorothy walks the new." 

Here was a strange situation, and the mission- 
aries drew aside to consult over the perplexing 
dilemma. It was manifestly impossible to accept 
the man, for he had no idea what he was doing, no 
conception of his own need, no motive but his love 
for this girl ; and yet to refuse such a plea as 

that After a few moments Mr. Wright 

spoke : 



64 In Camp and Tepee 



" Dorothy, you have heard what your uncle says. 
We will not take you now ; but we are giving you 
a great thing to do. Our people to the north, the 
Cheyennes and the Arapahoes, are calling us and 
we must go to them, but after six weeks we will 
come back again. Meanwhile you take your Bible 
and teach Nahwatz all about this new road. Eead 
the story to him and teach him, and then, when we 
return, if he understands and still wants to walk 
with you, we will take you both." 

So they left it. The Indians afterwards said that 
all through the time that they were gone they 
could hear the voice of Dorothy going on hour 
after hour late into the night, reading, and explain- 
ing the Bible to Nahwatz and her family and any 
of the other Indians who came to listen. When the 
missionaries returned they found much interest. 
They had made their way to Nahwatz's camp to find 
a sweet welcome from Dorothy. Her stepfather, 
Chataneyerque, and mother were there, with three 
old women — two of them her grandmothers. At 
the first service which was held, Nahwatz showed 
an insight and aptness of understanding that de- 
lighted the missionaries. Dr. Roe explained very 
simply the plan of salvation and then asked if any 
of the others were willing to cast aside their 
heathen worship and follow Jesus all their lives. 
With great earnestness, first the father lifted his 
hand high above his head, and then stretched it out 
to Dr. Roe. After a moment's hesitation the 
mother did the same and the three white-haired 



Expansion 



65 



women followed, each making a clear solemn dec- 
laration of her purpose and desire to go with her 
children on the Jesus road. That same night quite 
a company had gathered, and after a very sweet 
service Mr. Wright baptized the little family group. 
In an old diary of Mrs. Koe's are these words : " It 
was a remarkable sight when Mr. Wright stood 
there with Dorothy in Indian dress by his side. 
Before them were these camp Indians, all very 
diminutive, scarcely coming to Mr. Wright's shoul- 
der. The old women had faces seamed over with 
many wrinkles, but kindly after all in expression, 
white hair falling like a thatch over their faces as 
they stood in reverent attitude. Dorothy's father 
and mother, both very small, each held one of their 
beautiful children and all were baptized together. 
We feel that God is blessing us as we see this en- 
tire family brought to the light." 

The workers could only stay a few days, but they 
were enough for them to realize the sincerity and 
strength of the Comanche medicine-man and to 
appreciate the thoroughness of Dorothy's work. 
When the parting came it was with real sorrow 
that they shook hands with the little group of 
gentle, affectionate people they had come so soon to 
love. 

All through the golden days of early fall the 
missionaries jogged over the hot dusty trails of the 
Cheyenne country. The tales of the old people im- 
pressed upon their minds more clearly than ever 
before the inadequacy and the mockery of the 



66 In Camp and Tepee 



camp-life, for mockery it was of the old days when 
food depended on the skill and hardihood of the 
hunter, and safety on the ingenuity of the warrior. 
Men then were men, as the old people truly said, 
not the effeminate gamblers and do-nothings that 
now filled the camps. " Yet what could we do ? " 
they urged in one of the councils over the camp- 
fire. " What could we do ? The white man with 
his gun has killed and driven away the buffalo and 
the game ; he has shut us up on our reservations. 
There is no longer any need for fighting. "What is 
left for us to do ? " 

Then the missionaries would talk of the farming 
which the Government was trying to help them to 
undertake, and would tell them to " push, push, and 
learn this new road." But even as they talked 
with their growing understanding of these people, 
they realized the hardships of the new road." 
The Indian allotments are scattered and lonely, 
while Indians are above all else a sociable people. 
The old camps existed not only for defense, but 
even more for the enjoyment of companionship. 
The old religion, which, with the vounger gener- 
ation at least, was losing its hold as a vital force, 
still clung on because its feasts, its Ghost Dances, 
and its Sun Dances were the only forms of social 
life they knew, and social life they must have. 
Abhorring the immoral practices that as an inevi- 
table result had grown up around the ceremonies 
of the dving faith, as Dr. and Airs. Roe uncom- 
promisingly did. they yet realized that these cere- 




"Clinging to the Old Life/' 



Expansion 



67 



monies would remain as long as nothing better re- 
placed them. They could never be stamped out 
successfully. They must be replaced. But by 
what ? It was perfectly clear, if it was to be per- 
manent in result, the choice of a better form of 
social life must be made by the Indian's own de- 
liberation, not forced on him by the superior wis- 
dom of his advisers. But how tempt him to such 
a choice ? These were the questions that haunted 
the missionaries demanding a solution, forcing 
them to enlarge the scope of plans suggested by 
the first summer's experience of the hardships of 
camp-life. 

Perhaps it was in these days that they came to 
know and understand that most tragic figure of the 
Indian camps, w the tame wolf gone wild again," 
the returned student reverted to the blanket. They 
saw their hopeless situation when they came from 
the school, young, full of high ideals of service 
often, eager to lead and help, to be met in the 
tepees by suspicion and ridicule. With no place 
but the camp to go to, yet with no part in the old 
life, they struggle, often heroically, to keep the 
faith and the ideals the school has given them, but 
they are so alone, so terribly alone. Year by year 
the school experience fades into the past and their 
isolation grows till one day the rising flood of 
customs endeared by childish memory, and the 
longing for the fellowship of their own kind over- 
powers them and they go down before it, throwing 
themselves into the old ways in which they no 



68 In Camp and Tepee 



longer believe with a hardened recklessness more 
difficult to overcome than the fanaticism of a 
devotee. 

What could be done to hold these young people 
steady, to give them the sympathy they needed, 
and to make them feel they were not fighting alone ? 

In that volume of the minutes of the Mohonk 
Indian Conferences, which contains the proceedings 
of 1898, is recorded a speech which shows how Mrs. 
Koe met and answered these questions. 

In November Dr. and Mrs. Koe had gone north 
to meet the members of the Board for which they 
were working and to speak in the various churches, 
and so it was that they found themselves the guests 
of Mr. Smiley at Lake Mohonk and members of one 
of the conferences which he gathered and enter- 
tained each year. One afternoon Dr. Roe had 
spoken and the slender, frail man with his great 
soul and compelling eyes had held that audience of 
statesmen and scholars to breathless attention. 
That evening they were asked to supper at the 
host's table, for Mr. Smiley was interested in the 
thin-faced missionary and wished to hear more. 
Some of the great needs of the Indian race were 
brought up for discussion and in the conversation 
which followed Mrs. Eoe made a suggestion that 
at once caught Mr. Smiley's ear. 

" Mrs. Koe," he said, " you will have to lay that 
before the conference ; " and in spite of her gasp of 
protest and astonishment, he hurried off to arrange 
for space on the program of the evening. As Mrs. 



Expansion 



6 9 



Eoe rose to plead in five short minutes this need of 
a misunderstood race, she saw before her not the 
lighted room full of people but the bent, shrivelled 
form of white-haired blind Kooiss as she gave the 
missionary her parting message : " Happy Woman, 
my white sister, you must speak strong for us." So 
for the old woman she spoke. 

She touched on the need of the people of an 
opportunity for self-support, especially of the 
women whom the Government farming could not 
reach ; she spoke of upholding the returned students 
who have had careful training but who are un- 
expressibly isolated in the camps, and of supplying 
some substitute for the old time social life with its 
admixture of paganism, which civilization and 
Christianity were combining to destroy. Then she 
told them of her plan for building a house on the 
Indian reservation — such a house as would not be 
beyond the reach of any ambitious Indian family. 
At one side she would have a men's room with a 
big fireplace to be a social centre in place of the 
Sun Dance and Ghost Dance; on the other a 
women's room with stove, sewing-machine and 
laundry, appliances unknown in camp that go to 
make life easy and cleanliness possible. Here 
women would gather and be taught the proper 
care of home and children, and here could be simple 
arrangements for a workshop and hospital in case 
of need. It could be a returned students' gather- 
ing place where books and friendliness would give 
the backing to lonely lives. She would have it a 



70 In Camp and Tepee 



model home kept clean by the women, warmed by 
the men. It would cost but little to run and it 
would represent to a people just starting out on a 
new road what a home should be. " These people 
are worthy of your help," she said in closing. 
" Two Christian Kiowa women wanted some money 
to give to their church. It was long before they 
could think of a way to get any, but at last they 
took a wagon and went up and down the prairie 
picking up the sun-bleached bones that lie scattered 
here and there over the plains. It took them three 
days to fill their wagon and then they drove sixty 
miles to market where they sold their load for 
three dollars. 

" All they ask is a chance to help themselves. 
And does not such a people deserve the chance ? " 

The speech as reported is not long, but for all its 
simplicity, so brimful of enthusiasm, so fired with 
faith in the ability of the Indian that its effect was 
electrical. Contrary to the usual custom a 
collection was taken and over $1,200 subscribed 
in a few minutes. The following spring the house 
was built at Colony, and called after the manner of 
its giving, " The Mohonk Lodge." 

In the large room with the wide stone fireplace 
were tables, simple easy chairs, books, and games, 
and here came the old women and men from the 
camp to warm themselves before the comfortable 
blaze, the little schoolgirl to revel in the endless 
joys of a box of paper dolls and the educated Indian 
to read and write ; while often at night the floor 



Expansion 



7* 



might be covered with the sleeping figures of those 
who had sought refuge from storm or cold. In the 
other large room was a big cooking-stove, wash- 
boiler, tubs, with a wringer at one end, several 
quilting frames leaning against the wall, and two 
large cupboards, as well as a long table for the use 
of the industrial department when it should be 
started. There were two sewing-machines and a 
small wall closet containing a few simple medicines, 
such as the average family finds useful. Opening 
off this was a small room to be used as hospital in 
case of need. The loft under the sloping roof gave 
rooms for returned students as well as space for 
storage. 

From the first the missionaries adopted the plan 
of never urging the Indians to come but of supply- 
ing what they needed and wanted, and then leav- 
ing the house open night and day. 

^ * * ^ ^ 

Dr. and Mrs. Eoe had been wanting to start a 
Christian Endeavor Society among the school chil- 
dren but at first it seemed as if there were insur- 
mountable difficulties in their natural shyness and 
in the fact that Indian girls are trained to believe 
that speaking above a whisper is immodest almost 
to the point of indecency. At last, however, in the 
spring of 1899 it seemed as if the time had come. 
Twenty-one of the older boys and girls were invited 
to meet in one of the teacher's rooms. It was quite 
a close squeeze for all to get in and some were 
obliged to sit on the wood-box, but when all had 



72 In Camp and Tepee 



some sort of a place Mr. Roe began by telling how 
the society had started and explained in simple 
language and by concrete examples the meaning of 
the pledge. He then said that only those who 
were willing honestly to sign and keep that pledge 
could be members of the society, and they were to 
think it over and pray about it and then come the 
next Monday with their minds made up. 

The next week all twenty-one came and with the 
solemn faces with which an Indian always puts his 
name to any promise on paper they all signed, 
with curly shaded capitals and tipsy little letters, 
from Edward Yellow Calf, the oldest boy, to Clara 
Sioux, the littlest girl. Officers were elected and 
arrangements were made for the next prayer-meet- 
ing to be held on the following Monday. This 
meeting began with a few words by Mrs. Eoe and 
the two teachers. Then M contrary to all Christian 
Endeavor principles," said Dr. Eoe, " there came a 
most awful pause. At last I looked at Edward and 
asked him to start off. After a series of premoni- 
tory clearings of the throat — a sure sign with an 
Indian that he is preparing to say something — he 
recited his verse very distinctly, and one after an- 
other the boys followed his example. 

" But the girls ! I wish you could have seen our 
struggles to get them under way. I would say, 
4 Minnie, are you ready ? ' and Minnie's eyes would 
become stony and her whole frame fairly petrified 
with terror. ' Julia, what is your verse ? ' and 
Julia's face would flush deep crimson while her 



Expansion 73 



nands were almost twisting themselves and her 
dress to pieces from sheer agitation. 6 Marguerite, 
can't you give us a word ? ' and she would swallow 
and swallow and swallow, as if her verse, like the 
measles, had struck in and was going down her 
throat instead of up. But at last all had gasped 
out something, and when the meeting closed all 
went away very happy to think that they had kept 
their promise." 

# * * 5{C JjC 

In the fall came a letter from Mr. Wright in the 
Apache country with a wonderful story to tell. 
He had been having an experience so disheartening 
and discouraging that at last after weeks of inces- 
sant battling against the wall of indifference he 
had packed up his outfit and started to leave the 
field. " And this is the last time," he said to him- 
self, as he gathered up the reins, " this is the last 
time. I'm not coming again. I'm going where I 
can get in." 

As he neared the reservation gate he saw a man 
on horseback ahead of him who dismounted and 
opened the gate, then hearing the rattle of the 
heavy outfit behind him, he courteously stood aside 
and held the gate open to let the wagons pass. 

" Stranger," he remarked, as the wagon drew 
near, " that's a queer looking outfit you have there ; 
might I ask what is your business in this country ? " 

" I am a missionary to the Indians, and I am 
looking for a place to begin a work." 

M Well, if that's your business, why don't you do 



74 In Camp and Tepee 



something for these Indians ? God knows they 
need it badly enough." 

" Why, man dear," exclaimed Mr. Wright, " I 
have been trying for over three years to get in 
here. But I have had to give it up. I cannot get 
permission to preach." 

The man closed the gate softly before the team 
and mounted his horse. 

" You come back to Fort Sill to-morrow and see 
me," he said. " I am Lieutenant Beach, who has 
just been sent down to take charge of these Indians. 
We need a missionary on this reservation and we 
will see what we can do for you." 

While the soldier rode on about his business Mr. 
Wright camped for the night. The next morn- 
ing found him early on the way to Fort Sill to see 
his new friend. As a result a council of the In- 
dians was called. Mr. Wright had often thought 
over various ways of handing this fierce, suspicious 
band until he had come to believe that a Christian 
school where the children could be taught and 
cared for would be the surest entering-wedge, so 
now he asked the chiefs if they would consent and 
give their support to this. 

Old Geronimo himself, the lynx-eyed leader of 
the band, rose to give their astonishing answer. 

66 1, Geronimo, and these others," he said, " are 
now too old to travel your Jesus road. But our 
children are young and I and my brothers will be 
glad to have the children taught about the white 
man's God." 



Expansion 



75 



So Mr. Wright wrote that Lieutenant Beach was 
pushing matters at Washington to get the Depart- 
ment's permission to place the mission on military 
ground and he was going north to get money for 
the buildings and to find a teacher to begin the 
new work. 

Dr. Eoe picked up the Outlook he had been 
reading when the letter came, and opened it to 
the editorial on the Congressional debates over 
our new dependencies, then he lifted his eyes to 
his wife's glowing face as she stood re-reading the 
words of Geronimo's speech. His glance wandered 
out to the brooding roof of the Mohonk Lodge, 
midway down the mission compound to the church, 
and so back to his Outlook again. 

" 4 Expansion,' " he read, and then laughed softly, 
"Expansion is the order of the day." 



IV 

THE BEEAKING OP THE BANKS 

THE Mohonk Lodge, like every other new 
institution among Indians, had to begin 
slowly. Mrs. Roe's first idea had been 
that the actual work of the " Indian House " would 
fall to the Indian women, that they would prepare 
for any festivities or clear away afterwards, that 
they would keep it clean and in order, as the best 
of them did their tepees in camp. But a few 
weeks' experience showed the necessity for modi- 
fying this plan. Housekeeping in a tepee was a 
very different science from that in a white man's 
house. If anything spilled on an Indian woman's 
pounded earth floor, her method was to let it soak 
in as speedily as might be and when any given 
area became soaked to the point of saturation so 
that odors were intolerable even to a camp-trained 
nose, then she moved her tepee to a new spot, leav- 
ing the sunshine, the rain and Nature's scavengers 
to do a more thorough house-cleaning than she 
could ever hope to accomplish. Presented with 
the problem of a non-porous floor and an immov- 
able structure the Indian's method effected noth- 
ing but a glaring failure. Yet this very failure 
made apparent the need of a "model house" to 

76 



The Breaking of the Ranks 77 



afford training for the time, inevitably approach- 
ing, when the house should supplant the tepee. 
The missionary accordingly abandoned her posi- 
tion of superintendent from without, to attend to 
the details of cleaning, using the Indian women as 
helpers wherever possible and so teaching them 
the " white man's road." At first they viewed 
with impatience and a very evident feeling of 
superiority all the flurry of work, but the mis- 
sionary trusted to stormy days to drive them from 
the misery of rain-drenched camp to the dry 
warmth of the Mohonk Lodge, and to demonstrate 
the superiority of the white man's house. 

There was one thing which was threatening to 
limit the scope of this new enterprise, the same 
which had complicated work among these tribes 
from the beginning — their strange unconquerable 
jealousy. The Mohonk Lodge, like the mission 
buildings, had been located in the valley where 
the Cheyennes had always camped. Therefore the 
Arapahoes who had pitched their tepees on the 
hillside had chosen to consider this a Cheyenne 
Mission, nor had three years of constant battling 
availed to shake them from their attitude of cold 
hostility. Special efforts had been made to win 
them but always in vain. They heard of the 
study of their language with indifference, and the 
very summer previous to the building of the 
Lodge, they had given the missionaries a never- 
to-be-forgotten demonstration of how far their 
hostility would go. 



78 In Camp and Tepee 



It was with a sinking heart, then, that Mrs. Eoe 
noticed that none of the old men spreading cold 
hands before the open fire in the men's room were 
Arapahoes, and that the audience which displayed 
childlike astonishment at the magic-lantern pic- 
tures that Dr. Roe threw on an impromptu screen 
one night was made up only of Cheyennes. The 
missionary's wife struggled bravely to offset the 
weight of traditional taboo without avail, until 
her breaking health told her that the task lay 
beyond her strength, burdened as she already was 
with her share of mission routine as well as an 
extraordinary amount of clerical work due to the 
fact that Dr. Eoe's eyes were of little use to him. 
Here was a situation to be dealt with at once if it 
was to be handled at all. Day and night the mis- 
sionaries puzzled over it until, before Mrs. Roe had 
to leave on her enforced vacation, they felt the 
solution had been found. 

The Lodge should have a matron who would 
give all her time to the social and industrial educa- 
tion of these Indians, a matron who would be also 
a professional nurse who could win her way even 
among the Arapahoes by her care of the sick. 
Mrs. Roe's early experience was still strong in her 
mind ; she felt sure that an anxious woman would 
not consult tribal jealousy in the extremity when a 
life was at stake. Once the ice was broken with 
the tribe, the way would be clear. 

Dr. Roe was determined that the Lodge-work 
should remain undenominational. It was decided 



The Breaking of the Ranks 



79 



that the expenses of maintenance be divided into 
shares of twenty-five dollars each to be placed 
among friends of the Indians. Tims the necessary 
funds were provided and in April, 1900, Miss Mary 
Jensen came to Colony, beginning her work even 
before her salary was secured. It had been decided 
that the industrial department should revive the 
dying art of bead-work. With the newly acquired 
capital, skins, beads, and sinew were provided. 
Miss Jensen and Mrs. Roe soon had the industry 
under way, for the Indian women knew and loved 
the work, while a market was easily found for 
their beautiful goods. 

The greater part of the new matron's time was 
taken up with the work of the Indian house and in 
the camps, for which she proved to be peculiarly 
fitted. She was a little woman with large, prom- 
inent soft brown eyes which beamed from behind 
a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, a rapid, almost 
brusque utterance softened by a pretty Danish 
accent, and an energetic quick gait that immedi- 
ately won her, from the observant Indians, the 
name of " Fast Walker." 

For years, whenever the Lodge gate clicked and 
the Indian women looked up smiling to watch the 
characteristic little figure, instinct with life and 
forcefulness, hurrying across the camp with a cov- 
ered dish in one hand and in the other her stout 
whip with which she could manfully belabor any 
of the wolfish Indian dogs that dared attack her, 
they would say : " See, there goes ' Fast Walker.' " 



80 In Camp and Tepee 



But those who were sick or in trouble learned to 
say, with a sigh of relief or a smile of welcome, 
" Here comes our Little White Mother. 5 ' 

Soon after she came she had Ground Nose and 
his wife move their tepee and the tall windbreak 
of wattled weeds surrounding it over near the 
Lodge, that she might give better and more con- 
stant care to Amasa, one of the older schoolgirls 
who was in the last stages of consumption. The 
girl was an orphan and Ground Nose had offered 
her the shelter of his tepee. The first morning of 
the new arrangement, the matron entered to find 
Amasa sitting upright on her bed of quilts, her 
thin hands locked together, and her face distorted 
with suppressed emotion. Miss Jensen sat beside 
her and loosening the tense fingers stroked them 
between her small, warm palms. As she expected, 
the story burst forth. 

" That old man and his wife," cried the girl in a 
choked voice, " they are all the time talking of the 
wooden box they will bury me in, and what will 
become of my land." 

The matron's eyes snapped but she only said 
quietly, " Well, when you get better, just think 
how you can laugh at them." 

But the Indian girl shook her head. 

" I am not going to get better," she said. " I am 
getting weaker all the time. I know I am going 
to die." 

Miss Jensen's fingers closed firmly over the girl's 
hand, which she still held. 



The Breaking of the Ranks 8l 



" Surely you are not crying about that, are you ? 
You are a Christian, Amasa ; you are not afraid." 

" No-o," said the girl, and Miss Jensen looked at 
her sharply. 

" Why, child ! think of your mother, and Clara, 
and Woista and Amy " — naming school friends and 
playmates that had already taken the long trail — 
" and, Amasa, it is beautiful there, more beautiful 
than it is here, even now in the spring time. 
You will be happy all the day long, so you 
will forget how it is to be sad and you will forget 
how to cry. Why, child, I would just long to 
go to a place as wonderful as the place you are 
going, and yet you sit here and cry. I am 
ashamed of you. You don't know when you are 
well off." As she had been talking the matron 
had been shaking out the hot blankets that formed 
the girl's bed and straightening her rumpled cloth- 
ing. Now she stopped and uncovered a bowl of 
soup that sent up a cloud of fragrant steam. 
" See," she said, " I brought you something good, 
and now I am going to help you eat it." With an 
arm about the girl's thin shoulders she fed her the 
soup, talking all the while in her quick, brusque 
way, telling the news of the camp. 

" There now, child," she said as she rose to go, 
" that looks better. What shall I bring you next 
time ? Would an orange taste good ? So ? Well, 
you shall have it." Once more she scanned the 
thin face sharply. " Are you afraid now ? " she 
asked. 



82 In Camp and Tepee 



" Oh, no," answered the girl, " I am happy." 

Miss Jensen nodded energetically. 

" That's right. Just you keep thinking how 
lucky you are, and don't let me be ashamed of you 
again." 

The girl laughed and promised and Miss Jensen 
went on her way. 

In the adjoining tepee where she went to look 
after a sick baby now fast getting well, she found 
the wife of Yellow Eyes. Her husband had been 
recently baptized and she had immediately " thrown 
him away." At first she refused to return Miss 
Jensen's greeting, but when the matron, determined 
not to be rebuffed, sat quietly down beside her, the 
Indian woman half laughed, and deigned to take 
part in a conversation of signs. She maintained 
that she hated her husband, the church and all 
things Christian, giving as her reason, when pressed 
for one, that her heart was " a heap bad." If God 
would take away her " bad heart " she would feel 
good to all and be baptized, she said naively, shift- 
ing all responsibility from her own shoulders. Miss 
Jensen's brown eyes grew bright and hard as she 
watched the sullen gestures. 

" You and I are very different," she retorted. 
" You say you are afraid of our ' medicine ' — the 
church, the Bible and baptism. You are afraid of 
those things. You are not afraid to throw lies and 
bad words against His children that are walking in 
Jesus road." 

Mrs. Yellow Eyes looked at the white woman in 



The Breaking of the Ranks 83 



bravado for a moment, but then her eyes shifted 
uneasily. Miss Jensen saw the shot had told. 
Outside she met Bull Looking Around whom she 
stopped to congratulate on the beautiful bead- work 
his wife was doing and the many dollars she was 
catching thereby. At White Man's tepee she found 
Clara much better so that she could hurry on across 
the road to the Arapahoe camp. Here she visited 
first the tepee of an Arapahoe woman who had 
married a negro, once a wild evil man, but now 
distressed with asthma and pathetically dependent 
on the matron's care, as he had no faith in the 
" medicine-men." 

The old negro, Wash, was out, so " Fast Walker " 
turned first to Coffey who lay on the old man's bed. 
This Arapahoe man was in the last stages of con- 
sumption and otherwise loathsomely diseased. Call- 
ing to Mrs. Eobinson to bring her some hot water 
she bathed his sores and then straightened his bed 
of blankets, promising to send him some soup by 
Dr. Eoe who would be up in the afternoon to talk 
to him. Then she turned her attention to Mrs. 
Eobinson with her baby and little White Feather 
whom she had pulled up from death's door. At 
sight of the dirty little pair she seemed overcome 
with indignation. 

" Look at these children," she cried, for this 
Indian woman could understand her English, " just 
look at these children, and they might be such nice 
little children, too. Haven't I told you how bad it 
is for them to be dirty like this ? Have you for- 



84 In Camp and Tepee 

gotten how White Feather almost died because you 
left those dirty cans around for him to play with 
and eat out of ? Now look at this baby's eyes. I 
guess you want him to be blind like Cheyenne 
Chief. I told you that it is that in the corner of 
his eyes which brings the blindness. Get some 
more hot water and take this cloth and wash them 
out. So ! That is better. Now wash both their 
faces and their hands." The big woman obediently 
washed the baby with the white cloth the matron 
had given her and then laid hands on her small son. 
Miss Jensen surveyed him with a critical eye 
and advised soap, but one glance at the tomato 
colored cake convinced her that its omission was 
safest. After both children had been hygieni- 
cally attended to and White Feather's howls 
had subsided, she treated the baby's scalp. Then 
she planted a kiss on the temporarily clean 
little cheek, much appreciated by the mother and 
never known to be given except to a clean little 
baby. 

At the pig-pen she met the old negro, and had to 
stop to admire his two little pigs, a very unusual 
possession in an Indian camp and an example of 
thrift to be encouraged. Then she turned home- 
ward, stopping on the way for an invitation to 
Emil, a Christian Endeavor boy fast going with 
consumption, telling him to come to the parsonage 
for one good meal a day. 

Such was Miss Jensen's camp- work which took 
up a part of every day and, added to the growing 



The Breaking of the Ranks 85 



activities in the Lodge building, filled the matron's 
time to overflowing. 

# * * * * 

In April after Mrs. Roe's return a short camping- 
trip was planned, but just before they started off, 
Wash Robinson, the old negro, came to the door 
and asked to see Dr. Roe. He said that the 
Arapahoe Indian, Coffey, was now so weak and 
sick that it took too much of Mrs . Robinson's 
time to look after him. Did the missionary know 
any place where he could take him ? Dr. Roe 
thought a moment. 

" What do you say, Mary," he said, turning to 
his wife, " shall we put him in the Lodge ? " 

Mrs. Roe was afraid of the effect of superstition 
should the man die there, but the urgency of the 
case and the opportunity to demonstrate the 
Arapahoe share in the Lodge prevailed. Dr. 
Roe told Wash to bring the dying man, that 
they would have a place for him, and Mrs. Roe 
hurried down to help Miss Jensen set up a cot. 
The preparations were scarcely completed before 
Wash appeared at the open door of the men's 
room, carrying the emaciated form of the dying 
Indian in his arms. They laid him on the cot 
under one of the windows, where he could lie and 
watch the black-jacks tossing their branches in the 
ceaseless Oklahoma wind. 

Many times on that short trip the missionaries 
talked of him. Dr. Roe doubted if they would 
find him on their return. 



86 In Camp and Tepee 



" None of the Arapahoes, not even Mrs. Robin- 
son will go near the house," he said, " and the man 
will find it too lonely, I am afraid, with no one to 
talk to but Miss Jensen, and she away so much of 
the day." 

But when they came in sight of the Lodge, a 
red-blanketed figure on the porch caught their 
eyes, and there was Coffey. Dr. Roe asked him 
in the sign-language how he was. 

" Oh, this is a good place," he answered. " When 
the wind blows, I don't feel it ; when it rains, it 
don't get in here. When I am hungry that white 
woman " — he jerked his head towards the room 
behind him — " she brings me good food and fills 
me up. When I wake up in the night she comes, 
that white woman, and gives me water and medi- 
cine till I come up again. She stays by me when 
I sleep. My heart is glad because I am in this 
good place." 

The missionaries now took their part with Miss 
Jensen in the care of Coffey, and Dr. Roe saw in 
the routine of teaching the man a chance to in- 
dulge in one of his invariable practices, that of 
giving a visitor some share of the mission life. 
Mrs. Page, Mrs. Roe's sister, had been at Colony 
ever since the break in health which had forced 
the missionary's wife into temporary absence, and 
now a share in the instruction of Coffey might be 
the means of interesting a future worker. Accord- 
ingly the missionary suggested that Mrs. Page take 
the new scroll of pictures of the life of Christ and 



The Breaking of the Ranks 87 



explain it to the sick man with Mildred, one of the 
girls who had been in the school, to interpret for 
her. Mrs. Page immediately hunted up the scroll 
and with Mildred's help carried it down to the 
Lodge where she set it up on a chair beside the 
Indian's cot. 

" Now, Coffey," she said, " we have come down 
to show you some pictures of a good man." 

Coffey grunted his satisfaction and pleasure. 
Then, slowly, simply, while the Indian's large 
eyes never left the pictured scenes, she told him 
the story. When she had done, he sat for some 
time in silence. 

" When it is sunset," he pleaded, " come and tell 
me the story of that good man again." 

The white woman said she could not come again 
at sunset, but the next day she would return. 
Every day that week, with Mildred, she carried 
the pictures down and went through them, the 
Indian listening with grave attention or asking a 
question now and then. One day Mrs. Page said : 

" I have other pictures here, Coffey. Don't you 
want to see them too ? " She started to turn back 
to the Old Testament scenes, but he put up his 
hand and stopped her. 

" No," he said, " I just want to hear about that 
good man." 

" Coffey, do you know who He is ? " — and when 
he answered no — " He is Jesus that the mission- 
aries have been telling you about." 

Coffey turned startled eyes to look at her, a 



88 In Camp and Tepee 



strange expression on his face, but he said noth- 
ing. A few days later she pointed to his hands 
scarred with the prayer-cuts of the Badger-wor- 
ship. 

" I know you pray to the Badger," she said, 
" and sometimes you pray to other animals. But 
have you ever prayed to Jesus ? " 

He hesitated a moment and then answered her 
in the sign-language. 

" I know He is strong. I have heard the i medi- 
cine talker ' tell of him, and that white woman who 
takes care of me, and now you. Since just a little 
while, I have been praying to Him." 

"Have you ever wondered, Coffey, why God 
lets you live?" — then to his eager affirmative — 
" Perhaps He has work for you to do." 

" I am old, I am very sick. I haven't any 
strength like I used to have. What work could 
I do ? " The questioning face was pathetic in its 
eagerness. 

" You can go to the tepees of your people and 
tell them about this good man. For many years 
the missionaries have been trying to talk to your 
people, but they will not listen. Perhaps they 
would listen to you." 

The Indian considered. " They would throw me 
away," he said finally. 

" Perhaps they would, but not before you had 
time to tell them of Jesus. Who knows if some 
one might not listen to you and understand ? " 

Coffey sat a long while silent. He was weigh- 



The Breaking of the Ranks 89 



ing the consequences of such a step. To be bap- 
tized, to stand up before them all and say he would 
throw away all his old life, to give his sacred prom- 
ise — he knew what it would mean. Scorn and 
ridicule greater even than that heaped on the 
renegade who cut off his hair. They would drive 
him from their tepees and their thoughts, even as 
the spirits of their fathers would drive him from 
the Happy Hunting Grounds. If he took this 
road he must live and die alone. Yet these white 
people who had been so good to him said they 
were only doing as the Good Man told them, 
the Good Man — yes, there it was. He raised his 
head. 

" I want to see the medicine talker," he said. 

When Dr. Eoe came in Coffey did not wait for 
him to speak. 

" When are you going to baptize me ? " he asked. 

Dr. Eoe looked searchingly into his eyes and 
said, " But, Coffey, you have been a man of sin. 
What are you going to do with those sins of the 
past ? " With an eager glance Coffey replied : 

"That white woman she told me that Jesus, 
His blood, would wipe that all out. Is that 
straight ? " 

Satisfaction glowed in Dr. Koe's face, and deep 
earnestness shook his voice as he answered, " Yes, 
my friend Coffey, that is straight ! " 

The missionary's heart leaped as he realized 
what this man's life might mean to his tribe. He 
sat long and talked with the Indian until he was 



In Camp and Tepee 



sure that Coffey understood the full significance of 
the step, the entire breaking away from old ideas, 
and that his heart was strong to meet the hostility 
and social ostracism it would involve. When he 
felt satisfied as to the man's sincerity of purpose, 
he told him that the next day being Sunday, they 
would baptize him at the evening service. 

Mrs. Roe gave him some fresh turkey red to 
wind in his hair and Dr. Eoe bought him a new 
white shirt, and a pair of trousers, which he in- 
sisted on wearing with the tag left sewed on the 
back that all might know how good and new they 
were. 

On account of his weakness, Dr. Roe arranged 
that he was to stay in the Lodge till they were 
ready for him, so after the opening exercises the 
missionary explained the old man's case and sent 
Wautan out to bring him. Presently he appeared 
in the door wavering in weakness, his eyes fixed 
on the missionary. Dr. Roe stepped down from 
the little pulpit and beckoned him in. Coffey 
came forward feebly and taking off his hat laid 
it down on the communion table. Then the 
simple ceremony was gone through. At its close 
Dr. Roe said : 

"Now, my brother, you are sick and you are 
tired. You had better go back and lie down." 

Coffey looked up with his light-filled eyes. 
" Yes," came the swift gestures, " I am tired, 
but my heart is singing." Then he turned and 
went out. 



The Breaking of the Ranks 91 



Mrs. Page and Mrs. Eoe slipped out as soon as 
the service was over and hurried to the Lodge to 
see how he was. In the men's room the cot was 
empty, the new clothes were folded in a neat pile, 
and Coffey w r as gone. The two women were 
frightened and going out on the porch they sat 
down to wait till Dr. Eoe should come. Suddenly 
Mrs. Page grasped Mrs. Koe's arm. " Look ! " she 
cried, " look ! " There, feebly coming towards 
them down the road from the Arapahoe camp, 
was Coffey. They ran to meet him, fearing lest 
he should fall before they could reach him. 

" I have been to tell my people I have been bap- 
tized," he said in answer to their questions, and 
they stared at him in amazement, wondering how 
he had ever managed to crawl so far. 

" Did they throw you away ? " 

"I don't know," again the beautiful gesture, 
" but my heart is singing." 

For seven days the dying man climbed the hill 
to the Arapahoe camp each day, dragging himself 
from tepee to tepee telling the life of " that Good 
Man." With awed faces the Indians watched him 
as he talked with the shadow of death already in 
his eyes. 

When Mrs. Page had to leave for the north, 
she went down to say good-bye to him. He shook 
her hand again and again. Then through her tears 
she saw him speaking in the beautiful sign-language 
that he used so well : 

" In just a little while now I am going to die, 



92 In Camp and Tepee 



and go to God. When I sit down up there I shall 
be looking for you, my friend." Such was his 
ceremonial farewell. 

That night he was moved out into a tent, that 
was erected back of the parsonage, and there a few 
days later he died. His work was done, however. 
The ranks of opposition were broken. The Ara- 
pahoe camps were open at last. 



V 



THE FIEST CAMP-MEETINGS 

ONE afternoon in October two of the lead- 
ing men, one a Cheyenne and the other 
an Arapahoe, came up to the Colony par- 
sonage and asked for Dr. Roe. The missionary 
pushed back his books and papers with a sigh, for 
he was deep in his Sunday evening sermon, and 
went down the stairs to greet the waiting men. 
The Indian faces were evidently anxious and Iron 
Eyes, for this was the name they had given the 
missionary, surmised that this was no ordinary 
social visit. The event proved him right, for they 
began by telling him that a great council of both 
Cheyennes and Arapahoes had been called to meet 
some sixty miles over the prairie to the east. 

" Our hearts are afraid," they said. " We do not 
know the white man's road and many times we 
put our names on papers that we do not under- 
stand. We make promises in the dark, and when 
we have to keep them our hearts are on the 
ground. We are like little children and our 
hearts are afraid. So to-day we come to you, 
Iron Eyes, to ask you to go with us and give us 
the road. Then our hearts will be strong, for we 
know you will tell us straight and we will be 
safe." 

93 



In Camp and Tepee 



The next morning Dr. Koe hitched Dick and 
Dan, the " medicine horses," to the buggy, stowed 
a roll of bedding under the seat and he and Mrs. 
Roe set off, over the prairie's swelling floor, past the 
old abandoned coach-stand, past Dead Woman's 
Canyon, where the spring of cool water is, down 
into the valley of the treacherous Canadian. Fear- 
ing the quicksands of the ford, they turned up the 
river to the bridge, and rattled across to pull up in 
front of a queer little hotel, wedged in between a 
cut-bank and the stream, where they spent the night. 

Late the following afternoon they heard the beat- 
ing of the tom-toms far ahead, which gradually 
increased in volume as they drew nearer, until they 
came in sight of the great, wide circle of white- 
coned tepees, where an eager welcome awaited 
them from their Christian Indians. The first night 
they spent in a so-called hotel in the frontier village 
some three miles away, but perhaps one night was 
enough, for early the following morning they re- 
turned to the camp and thereafter preferred to 
make their home with Thunder Bull and his wife 
Nistoya. 

There were two thousand Indians in the tempo, 
rary village and the missionaries soon had plenty to 
do. There were the ever-present sick to be cared 
for, there were church members who had moved 
away to be looked up. These Dr. Eoe always 
advised to connect themselves with near-by churches 
of whatever denomination they might be. There 
were the long hours in council with the chiefs, and 



The First Camp-Meetings 95 



at night, gathering about the fire in their little 
tepee, they talked over old times and present prob- 
lems with their Christian hosts. 

" I tell you what, Mary," said the missionary as 
they unrolled their bedding on the ground against 
the tepee's curved wall, " this work may be hard, 
slow and discouraging, but it is also full of joy and 
bound to win." 

It was long before they could go to sleep, for 
outside they heard the beating of drums, the weird 
haunting barbaric songs, and the tinkling of bells, 
as the grotesquely painted, almost naked dancers 
kept up their strange rites till far into the night. 
Three days the camp held together, the last one 
being Sunday. 

Saturday night a " blue norther " came up, one 
of those sudden, relentless, cold winds that carry 
winter and misery along with the low-hung blue 
gray clouds, and Dr. Koe decided to take his wife 
back once more to the shelter of the hotel. He 
most unwisely left his winter overcoat hanging in 
the office when they went up-stairs to bed, and the 
next morning it was gone. The north wind was 
still blowing a gale, so, as Dr. Eoe said, there was 
nothing for him to do but " to revert to the 
blanket," which he did, much to the delight of his 
Indian friends who did not fail to point out that 
his belongings had been perfectly safe for three 
days in an Indian camp, but in one night the " heap 
coyote " white man had robbed him. 

A Baptist missionary named Mr. King joined 



96 In Camp and Tepee 



thein that Sunday morning and all day they worked 
together trying to get a Christian Council, but the 
chiefs, hostile to Christianity and immersed in their 
dancing, put them off with one excuse after another 
until it was too late, and they had to content them- 
selves with gathering a few of the Christian Indians 
at one side and holding a short service under the 
trees that moaned and shivered in the biting wind. 

One evening some weeks later when the two 
missionaries were sitting by their open fire and the 
leaping, crackling flames brought back the memory 
of those days in Thunder Bull's tepee, Dr. Roe 
suddenly broke the silence. 

" Do you remember that old Jesuit we met in 
Ottawa ? " he asked, and then as Mrs. Roe looked 
up wondering what was coming next he went on, 
" I was just thinking that they pretty nearly had 
the right of it in their handling of these Indians. 
He said to me : ' We must go to them. They will 
not come to us.' And that was the key-note of that 
whole sympathetic successful work of those old 
French Missions. 

" Frank Wright and I have been talking things 
over and he has felt for some time that we ought 
to be able to make something of the council idea. 
Thunder Bull was telling me that in the old days 
when the chiefs called the people together they 
always gave a feast — that is, they fed them— be- 
cause the men were called from their hunting and 
trapping and it was only right that their families 
should not suffer. And in return the men were 



The First Camp-Meetings 97 



required by sacred and immemorial custom to hear 
and fairly consider whatever the chiefs had to pro- 
pound. Isn't that worth using ? Surely we could 
get some church back East interested enough to 
give us what money we would need to feed them 
for, say, four days, and think how many of the old- 
time Indians, living as they do on the ragged edge 
of starvation, would come for the food or for the 
joy of an old-time camp. "We could have our chance 
with men who would never give us a hearing at any 
other time." 

Miss Jensen, whose camp experience made her 
an authority, was called up from the Lodge, and 
together they worked over a menu that would be 
both acceptable and possible. There must be beef, 
of course, for no " feast " would be worthy the 
name to an Indian's mind without it, coffee and 
sugar, and after considerable deliberation flour, 
baking-powder and lard. The government plan 
of issue could be followed ; that is, a census would 
be taken of the camp, a ticket given to each woman 
punched with the number of people in her tepee, 
thus insuring that provisions would be divided with 
some hope of justice and a minimum of complica- 
tions. 

To secure the extra men necessary to carry this 
plan through to success, notification was sent to the 
Dutch Reformed seminaries and colleges, asking 
them to call the attention of the young men who 
were working their way and considering the possi- 
bility of summer employment, to the opportunity in 



98 In Camp and Tepee 



the Colony field. Thus they could be sure every 
summer of the reinforcement that the new line 
of work would necessitate ; an intimate knowledge 
of Indian progress and needs would be brought 
to the young men preparing for the ministry and 
through them to the denomination at large ; and 
also when expanding work should call for new 
workers, there would be a considerable number of 
men, whose aptitude and ability would be known, 
who could come to the work with the advantage 
of an understanding of methods and of months of 
training under experienced Indian missionaries. 

Almost at dawn on a Wednesday morning early 
in the summer of 1901 the mission-family began to 
move. There was Mr. Wright, Dr. and Mrs. Roe, 
and four of these young men. Although it was 
fully a day before the time set for the camp-meet- 
ing or Christian Council, yet they found that a few 
Indians were already settled and a constant proces- 
sion of white-covered wagons with their dragging 
tepee-poles was winding down the prairie-trail to 
the flat by the curving line of cotton woods that 
marked Cobb Creek. For an hour the missionaries 
were busy " snugging down " their camp. Some 
of the men unhitched the horses, led them down 
to the creek to drink, and then tethered them out 
to grass, while others unloaded the wagons, tossing 
tents, cots, rolls of bedding, and suit-cases in a 
promiscuous heap, but handling with tender care 
the chuck-box and the little sheet-iron cooking- 



The First Camp-Meetings 99 



stove. Next came the raising of the tents in which 
all had to take a hand, fitting the uprights into the 
ridge-pole and stretching the canvas over that, 
bracing these uprights, while the flapping wind- 
blown canvas wrapped itself with diabolic ingenuity 
about one's struggling legs until experts like Mr. 
Wright and Dr. Eoe could decide on the angles 
and drive in the tent-pegs that hold the four corner 
guy-ropes in position. Then on to the next, leaving 
some poor unhappy tender-foot to pound down the 
remaining comparatively unimportant ropes, con- 
soled by Mrs. Eoe who followed him about with a 
gunny-sack full of pegs. 

When the tents were all up, the men trooped off 
with axes on shoulder to make the arbor for the 
meetings, assisted by a few of the younger Indians, 
and Mrs. Roe with the camp cook set up the stove 
and the chuck-box under the kitchen shade, and 
stored the provisions in the little " chuck-tent." 
Then when the missionary's wife had made up all 
the beds, unfolding and bullying the ingenious 
little soldier-cots into proper position and folding 
the many quilts into the warm sleeping pockets 
that the camper finds necessary even on midsummer 
nights on those high, wind-swept plains, when she 
had set up the four sewing tables of varying sizes 
side by side to make the camp table and had placed 
the wagon seats and a few rickety treacherous 
camp-stools about it for chairs, she could sit down 
to rest in the shade of a black-jack tree and watch 
the growing life of the Indian camp. 



loo In Camp and Tepee 



Near by was a wagon that had just come to a 
standstill and the man was leading away the horses 
while the woman, her baby on her back, was 
pulling the long poles out from behind. Near her 
the old grandmother, her white hair blown in elf- 
locks across her face, and her tattered blanket 
whipped about her bent, shrivelled form, was root- 
ing up the grass with a queer bone instrument and 
pounding the earth down hard and smooth with a 
stone to make the tepee-floor. Just beyond them a 
young girl, evidently a bride, judging from her new 
equipment, had already raised the formidable 
tripod of sixteen-foot poles, and Mrs. Eoe watched 
with interest the slender girlish figure as, holding 
the long rope that tied her three main props, she 
raised pole after pole, setting them in position and 
then with a quick turn of her wrist sending a loop 
whirling up the rope to settle over the pointed end 
and tie it fast. Every movement was easy, assured 
and graceful, and the brown face, framed in its 
wings of glossy black hair, that she turned to her 
mother who cackled approval from the wagon-seat, 
was radiant with winsome happiness. 

The two last poles to which the spotless new 
tepee cloth was fastened were put in place, the 
cloth was pinned securely together save for the 
low doorway at the bottom, the lower edge was 
staked down close on the sunny side but pushed up 
a little on the other to catch the breeze, before the 
mother descended from her perch to light the fire 
in the hole in the centre of the tepee's floor while 




"She Raised Pole After Pole; 



The First Camp-Meetings 101 



the girl adjusted the triangular flaps over the smoke 
hole to get the best draught. Then she came round 
to the tepee door, looking from under the shade of 
her curved hand towards the creek. Up through 
the tepees, the standing wagons, the racing dogs 
and shouting, scurrying children came the young 
man. When he saw the slender figure by the 
tepee-door he quickened his steps, throwing his 
blanket over his head as he had done in the days of 
his wooing. The girl laughed and the low, happy 
sound reached the missionary under the black-jack 
tree. With a few rapid strides the man was at the 
girl's side, holding open his arms, and as he 
gathered her to him the blanket's dark folds fell 
over them both, shutting them in to the only 
privacy that an Indian camp can know. Then 
stooping, they entered the tepee together. 

Late in the afternoon when Mrs. Eoe was going 
about the camp, seeking her friends, shaking hands 
and talking in the sign-language, she saw an old 
woman sitting in the shade of her wagon with a 
little child in her lap. The woman kept her face 
studiously turned away but Mrs. Roe thought she 
recognized the set of the shoulders and she crossed 
over to the woman's camp. As she had expected 
she was greeted by the sullen face of Mrs. Little 
Chief, an Arapahoe medicine-woman and inveterate 
gambler. There was little welcome in the dark 
face but the missionary sat down, determined to 
win a smile before she left. The little child left 
his grandmother's lap and toddled across to this 



102 In Camp and Tepee 



sweet-faced lady, which made the old woman laugh 

and so the talk began. 

At first the missionary spoke of the days when 
the Indians all ran away from them and how when 
they reached a camp they found the people " all 
wiped out." The old woman nodded yes, she re- 
membered it. She told how the Indian runners 
had come on ahead and brought the word that the 
" Jesus-man" was on the way, until Mrs. Little 
Chief unbent to relate, with quick, picturesque 
gesture, how the Indian women bundled the babies 
into the wagons and how the men lashed the ponies 
to make them keep ahead of this " Jesus-man." 
Then Mrs. Eoe told of when they were caught 
once in a dreadful storm and had taken refuge in 
Little Chief's tepee. Did Mrs. Little Chief remem- 
ber that ? Yes, she remembered that too, and her 
white teeth showed in her slow smile. 

" Mrs. Little Chief," asked the missionary's wife, 
"one time a long time ago, Little Chief, your 
husband, said he wanted to walk in the Jesus road 
and you were coming with him, but after a little 
while he told us to wait for just one year. J ust 
one year you and he would walk in the old road 
and then you would come. Before the year was 
gone, Little Chief — he died " — and as the mission- 
ary's hands made the impressive sign as if he had 
gone down into the shadows and out through a 
low door, the hard face opposite grew darker — 
"and you, you threw the Eoad away." 

" Yes," signed the old woman, " I threw it away." 



The First Camp-Meetings 103 



" Then your son, Good Traveller, — he wanted to 
walk in the Road. He came and told Dr. Roe he 
wanted to walk in the Road. But you, you held 
him back." A gleam of triumph crossed the old 
face but the missionary went on relentlessly, " In 
just a little while he died. He wanted to come 
but you held him back, and in just a little while 
he died. 

"Always now you turn away from me. My 
heart is good to you and I am glad to see you but 
you shut your eyes that you may not see me. Yet 
I look at you and I know that your heart is on the 
ground. Why is it ? Tell me why is it ? " 

For a long time they sat in the growing dusk 
until Mrs. Roe began to fear that the old woman 
would not answer, but just as she was thinking of 
going, Mrs. Little Chief raised her head. 

" Sometimes at night," she said, " the wind blows 
and blows. It is dark. I cannot sleep. I lie 
awake and listen to the wind. My sins are just 
the same as a great burden on my back." 

" But you know that God — He can take that 
burden from your shoulders ? " 

" Yes," came the slow signs, " I know it." 

" Then why don't you give Him that burden ? 
Why do you hold it on your back ? " 

Slowly Mrs. Little Chief reached for a corner of 
her blanket that was knotted together and un- 
fastening it with fumbling fingers, she held the con- 
tents out to Mrs. Roe. The missionary had to look 
closely in the fading light before she recognized 



104 ^ n Camp and Tepee 



the painted peach-stones of a favorite gambling 
game. 

" You mean you cannot throw away your gam- 
bling, so you will not throw away your bad heart 
that aches when the wind blows at night ? " 

"Yes." 

" Mrs. Little Chief, I want to tell you a story. 
There was once a little boy who found a jar, like 
that one there," and she pointed to a pottery water 
jar leaning against the wagon- wheel, " only much 
smaller, and inside it he saw a penny. He reached 
in to get the penny but the hole was very small, 
so he had to push hard to reach it. At last he got 
his fingers on it and then he closed his hand " — the 
missionary closed her fist tightly. " Then when he | 
tried to pull his hand out he couldn't do it. The I 
little boy was very, very much afraid. So he went 
to his father and asked him to help him. Then his 
father said, ' My son, let go of the penny, and your 
hand will come out.' But you, my friend, you 
hold to the gambling and you will not take a new, 
good heart. Your gambling, does it make you 
happy? Is your heart light and singing all the 
day ? Or is your heart on the ground ? Tell 
me." 

" My heart is on the ground." 
" Is it just that one thing ? Is it just the gam- 
bling?" ^ 

Mrs. Eoe leaned forward to catch the old 
woman's answer. The moon had risen and its 
light bathed her eager face, but the old woman 



The First Camp-Meetings 105 



with the child asleep in her lap was in the shadow 
of the tepee. It was some time before she an- 
swered. 

" Tell me one thing," she said ; " is there only 
one road to heaven ? " 
" Only one." 

" There are many of my friends who did not find 
that road. Tell me, where are they ? " 

"I do not knew where they are, Mrs. Little 
Chief, but I know that God is good, and I believe 
He will do nothing that is not right." 

Mrs. Little Chief flung up her head. 

" You white people use a great many words, but 
I am an old woman. All my friends are dead, and 
in a little while I too shall die " — again that im- 
pressive gesture of going down into the shadow 
and out. " The Indian road lies straight to the 
Land of the Setting Sun. My friends walked 
that road and I am hungry to be with my friends. 
I told you that my heart is on the ground. It is 
true. But in a little while I, too, shall die." 
* * * * x # 

Early the next morning the workers were wak- 
ened by the long-drawn musical tones of the camp- 
criers. Dr. Eoe got up and stepped outside. The 
two men were standing on the summit of the hill 
almost a mile away, their figures dark against the 
brightening sky, while clear and distinct the voices 
rang over the sleeping tepees. The first camp- 
meeting had begun. 

In the middle of the morning the sonorous call 



lo6 In Camp and Tepee 



rang out again and little by little the hum of 
Indian life died down, laughter and singing 
ceased, the shouts of the children were hushed 
until the words of the criers floated clear over 
the silence. Then out of the white, hot camp they 
began to come, by twos and threes, across the strip 
of dazzling sunshine to the cool shade of the great 
arbor with its fresh green boughs, ^agon-sheets 
and strips of canvas covered the ground and at the 
middle of one long side the folding u baby-organ n 
had been placed with a few chairs for the mission- 
aries and interpreters. 

Gradually the picturesque audience gathered. 
Old men, many of them blind, led by gaily 
dressed children whose ridiculously short hair 
had been braided so tightly that it stood stub- 
bornlv out on either side instead of hanging de- 

J © © 

corously down, giving a strangely comic look to 

otherwise solemn little faces ; young women often 

pretty with bright eager eyes, often sad and worn 

with the heavy baby nodding sleepily over the 

shoulder ; and men, proud, aloof, with painted 

cheeks and the snowv eagle's feather above then 1 

w © 

heads ; these filled the space inside the arbor, 

crouching on the ground. Outside in the sun- 
© © 

shine near enough to listen, but too proud to come 
in, stood a few old-time Indians, hostile even now, 
tall, straight figures, wrapped from head to foot in 
their blankets. 

There was first much singing, for this music- 
loving people will listen spellbound for hours even 



The First Camp-Meetings 107 



to the songs that they cannot understand, and then 
Wautan rose to pray, his sweet, strong face up- 
turned, his fine wrinkled hands, trembling with 
eagerness, held high above his head, and the low 
musical voice pleading in soft Arapahoe. The 
missionaries caught the one word " Xaesunah " re- 
peated again and again, " My Father — my Father." 
Then Mr. Wright, standing between his interpreters, 
began his talk, giving it out sentence by sentence 
for the interpreters to put it simultaneously in 
Cheyenne and Arapahoe, sometimes stopping to 
explain more fully some expression, new to his 
puzzled mouthpiece. If a baby woke and cried, 
its shrivelled old grandmother would shoulder it 
and picking her way out of the " medicine shade " 
would walk up and down outside where the baby's 
subsiding wail and the old woman's crooning song 
would be an accompaniment all unheeded by either 
the speaker or his audience that sat leaning for- 
ward silent and listening. After this talk a song 
was sung, all standing together, and Mr. Wright 
asked any Christian, whose heart was sad or whose 
feet were walking far from the Jesus road, but 
who wanted to get back in the way, to come and 
give him his hand, and if there was any one who 
had been thinking in his heart and who wanted to 
walk in the Jesus road, let him come too, while 
the missionaries were singing. After a long hesi- 
tation two or three came, often with tears on the 
hard faces. So the meeting closed. 

The afternoon gathering was more like an Indian 



io8 In Camp and Tepee 



council, where the Indians themselves talked and 
prayed or sang as they willed. And the evening 
was a repetition of the morning, save that the 
lanterns swung on the arbor poles made strange 
fantastic shadows that added an unreality to the 
strange scene. 

Four busy days they were, filled with light and 
shadow, but when, on Sunday evening, fourteen 
were baptized, the missionaries felt that the camp- 
meeting was no longer an experiment but an ac- 
credited branch of their work. 



VI 



THE BEGINNING OF THE HAEVEST 

ONE afternoon Dr. and Mrs. Roe, returning 
from a short trip, paused astonished on 
the hill above the mission. A line of 
yellow flags stretched across beyond the church 
and disappeared in the timber towards the school. 

" Smallpox," ejaculated Dr. Roe, as he urged 
the horses down into the valley. 

At the gate in the fence they found Miss Jensen 
waiting for them with the news that smallpox 
had broken out in the school. She said that Mr. 
Seger thought they would have no difficulty in 
holding it there, but if they should fail, the whole 
mission compound and the camp would be put 
under strictest quarantine. 

" He says he has plenty of help," she went on 
with her pretty Danish accent, " and unless it 
breaks out in camp there is nothing we can do 
within the lines. These Indians have got to be 
kept here, however," indicating the tepees about 
the mission buildings, " until they can be certain 
that they cannot spread the disease. Dr. Roe, I 
am very glad you have come back to help me with 
them, for they are terribly frightened. You will 
talk to them for me, won't you ? " 

" Yes," answered the missionary. " Call the men 
109 



no 



In Camp and Tepee 



together. I will see them as soon as I put up this 
team." 

About an hour later a group of sullen, angry 
Indians had gathered in the men's room at the 
Lodge. The missionary took his place between his 
interpreters and asked quietly : 

" Now then, men, what is it ? " 

" Iron Eyes is our friend," answered the spokes- 
man ; " he will help us. Ma-orkenay (Mr. Seger) 
has told us that the children are sick with the 
great sickness. He says there are only three or 
four sick but he will not let us see our children. 
How can we know that he talks straight ? We 
know that when two or three in a camp have the 
great sickness, pretty soon the rest are sick too. 
We know that, yet Ma-orkenay will not let us come 
and take our children away. He will not let us go 
away from this camp. Our women and children 
may die, for the great sickness is in this valley. 
Yet we must stay. Does Ma-orkenay think that 
we are fools ? We will take our children and go, 
and Iron Eyes, who is our friend, will help us." 

" My friends are walking the wrong trail," said 
the missionary quietly. " Do you remember last 
winter when the children had the measles, how 
some of you were afraid and came to the school 
and took your sick children away ? Do you re- 
member that the children in the school were soon 
well again, but that your sick children, that you 
and your medicine-men took away, did not do as 
well. Do you remember that ? " A sullen mur- 



The Beginning of the Harvest ill 

mur ran about the circle but the missionary put up 
his hand for silence. " It is a bad trail you are 
following and Ma-orkenay has the good road. 
Listen until I make it straight before you. 

" Three or four of the children are sick. You 
are right when you say if one in a camp has the 
great sickness, the others who are with him will 
soon have it too. That is true. But Ma-orkenay 
has not left the sick children with the well. He 
has taken them out and put them in a house which 
is built to keep sickness from coming out to well 
people. There are white women in that house who 
are caring for your children as Fast Walker cares 
for them. These white women and their medicine 
are very strong. They saved your children who 
had the measles. They can save them now. If 
any of the well children should get sick, Ma-orkenay 
will put them in that house where they can get well 
again. That is why he keeps them so he can watch 
them and help them. It is just the same with you. 
He keeps you here so he can watch you and help 
you if you get sick. 

" You say you will take your children and go 
away. You talk like old women. If you take 
them out to Deer Creek or the Washita, and one 
of them has this sickness, what will you do ? You 
have no house to put them in. Your medicine- 
men know nothing about this sickness. In a little 
while you will all have it and many of you will 
die. It is a bad trail to follow. I tell you straight. 
I would not be your friend if I helped you walk in 



1)2 



In Camp and Tepee 



it. The good road is for you to go back now and 
tell the women what I have said. Tell them to 
have strong hearts ; in a little while your children 
will be well again and you can go. If the medicine- 
men try to turn you from this road, tell them you 
listened to their words last winter and they brought 
death to your children and sorrow to your hearts. 
Now you are listening to your friend, Ma-orkenay, 
and walking in his good road." 

The men signified their relief and satisfaction 
with nods and low gutturals as the interpreter 
repeated the last words. Then they rose and went 
out to carry the news to the anxiously waiting 
camp. Dr. Koe returned to the parsonage to consult 
with the other workers. 

"I ought to go out to the Washita and Deer 
Creek to reassure the Indians," he said. " When the 
news of this epidemic reaches them, they will be 
badly frightened. That is where we are needed 
most just now, without a doubt. Miss Jensen 
could telegraph if there should be any need here." 

This plan was agreed on. Mrs. Roe and her 
sister hauled out and looked over the tents, repaired 
the cots and rolled up the bedding for the trip. 

The next morning early found them on the road. 
It was late afternoon when they came into the 
Indian camp. Each one knew his task and set 
about it as soon as the wagons came to a halt, so 
that the call for supper came just as the last horse 
had been provided with his box of corn and oats, 
and all gathered under the canvas fly where the 



The Beginning of the Harvest 113 

four uneven sewing tables were covered with tin 
dishes and a smoking supper. By the time the meal 
was over and the dishes washed, a task in which all 
had a share, the swift dark of the Southwest had 
fallen, bringing the cold with it. Lanterns were 
hung on the tent-poles and a big fire was built out 
in front and here the group gathered for a talk. 

Beyond the ruddy circle of the firelight glowed 
the encircling tepees, brilliant golden cones with 
black stripes marking the poles and strange gro- 
tesque shadows painted on the walls by the flicker- 
ing fires and the people within. Little by little 
the Indians began to join the group of workers, 
some quietly slipping in, others with ceremonious 
greetings and sign-talk claimed a place. Long 
pipes were brought out and the blue rings of 
tobacco mingled with the wood-smoke above their 
heads and floated off. 

With swift gestures these scarred veterans of war 
and the chase told of the old days, described the 
ingenious methods of trapping game, the long rides 
after the buffalo, crawling silent through the grass 
in the last stalking of the herd, the charging bulls, 
the wary hunter with his bow, and at last the shot 
that felled the giant of the herd. They talked of 
long days on the war-path when they had to crawl 
for miles with sage-brush fastened on their heads 
to elude the watchful enemy, of the rush in the 
dark and then the return and the dancing and sing- 
ing of the women. It was far into the night before 
the missionaries separated. 



114 



In Camp and Tepee 



For a week they travelled up and down, visiting 
the Cheyenne camps, and everywhere they noticed 
with pride the work of the Mohonk Lodge. Since 
no article was received which had the slightest spot 
or stain, the tepees of the bead- workers were scru- 
pulously clean and neat. Children were called in 
from play to show their bright little faces and clear 
eyes, comparatively free from the dreadful trachoma 
that is the scourge of the Indian camp, so that the 
missionaries might tell the " little White Mother " 
at the Lodge that her friends were "pushing" 
along this "soap and water road," and that the 
children were thriving thereon. 

*5f *5€" *5f ^5* 4f 3f 

In January of 1902 the Government at last took 
the step which all the truest and best informed 
friends of the Indians had been urging for years, the 
discontinuing of the ration system. This ill-advised 
help which had sapped the self-reliance of the am- 
bitious being withdrawn, and the miserable subsist- 
ence which had satisfied the backward and slothful 
denied them, the Indians were at last forced to 
work. But no man, however willing, can wring a 
living from the soil in a day, and in many cases 
ground had to be broken before the seed could be 
planted. Months would pass before any return 
could be looked for — months during which the 
family must live somehow — and then it was that 
the Mohonk Lodge came into its larger work. 

Runners soon carried the news that "the Indian 
house," as they were coming with pride to call it, 



The Beginning of the Harvest J 15 

would accept old-time articles as curios and that 
men who could make or copy these things would 
" catch " many dollars at the Lodge. Many a family 
facing starvation on an allotment that they had 
chosen because of the wild beauty of its wind- 
blown rocks, or because of memories that clung to 
its bird-haunted barrens, saw their first gleam of 
hope. Then old men set feverishly to work polish- 
ing and carving their old stone pipes, grinding 
arrow-heads for slow, patient hours on the smooth 
stone that they could not bear to part with but 
never thought to use again, and balancing and 
feathering the shafts. Boys scoured the prairie 
hunting the wild turkey, whose feathers were used 
in the war-bonnets and coup-sticks, and whose whis- 
kers were dyed and braided into the graceful head- 
ornaments of former days. Then with leaping 
hearts and happy faces the whole family would 
climb into the wagon, each with his precious bundle, 
to drive to Colony, for the first money they had 
ever earned. Even the girls just out from school 
caught the fever. They no longer looked down 
on their mothers' bead- work, but tried with eager 
hands to learn the secret of the beautiful art, some- 
what unskillfully at first, but with more and more 
success as days went by. 

Those were busy weeks for the Mohonk Lodge. 
The missionaries soon saw that the growing indus- 
trial department was getting beyond the ability of 
a matron to carry without injustice to her other 
duties. The salary of a business manager was 



1 1 6 In Camp and Tepee 



secured and the position was offered to Mr. Eeese 
Kincaide. a former resident of Colony, as a man 
who knew the ideals for which the Alohonk Lodge 
had been founded, and who also possessed the ad- 
vantage of being known and trusted by the Indian 
women, 

During this year. also. Dr. Roe's health, never 
strong, had given way entirely, and the Board 
arranged to send the missionary and his wife to 
Europe, with a leave of a year, and Mrs. Page, 
who was now Field Secretary, went down to assist 
in the summer's work. Before he left, however, 
Dr. Boe insisted on dragsringr himself down to the 
church to baptize Carl High Walker, the shyyoung 
deaf and dumb bov. whom he had won and loved 
and taught and worked over for years. It was a 
strangely impressive service between the eager lad 
and the teacher he might never see again. Question 
and answer in the liturgy took on a new meaning 
in the paraphrasing of the sign-language. 

"Do you know God just the same as your 
Father ? Do you know God's Son — Jesus — just 
the same as your Brother ? God's Son wipes away 
your sin ? You give your heart to Jesus ? You 
tell God and you tell me you cut off working bad ? 
You tell God and you tell me you follow right 
after God? You tell me every little while yon 
pray to God ? You tell me every little while you 
go into God's house ? You tell me and you tell 
God you push, push, and follow after God's Son 
strong ? n 



The Beginning of the Harvest 1 17 



Carl raised his hands in the swift answer : " Yes, 
I follow strong." 

After Dr. and Mrs. Koe had gone, Mr. Wright, 
or occasionally some worker from a neighboring 
white field, would come to take charge of the 
Sunday services, but aside from these visits the 
workers at Colony pressed forward on their diffi- 
cult task much alone. The summer was spent in 
long camping trips, rendered doubly difficult this 
year because of the heavy rains, but with all their 
hardships, none were so valuable to the Field Sec- 
retary. The perilous crossings of well-nigh unford- 
able streams, and later the wind and dust, the 
devastating heat and the long rides without water, 
taught her, as nothing else could, what must have 
been the experiences of those earlier years. Little 
time was spent at Colony, and for weeks the build- 
ings there seemed strangely deserted, for the issue- 
camp with its busy life was now a thing of the 
past. 

* * * * # * 

Every winter, early in December, the Christmas 

work began piling up at Colony. 

Almost every trip of the mail wagon down from 

the new town of Weatherf ord, fourteen miles away, 

brought boxes and barrels from churches in the 

north. 

Mrs. Eoe and Miss Jensen cleared away the 
furniture from the big men's room, and here with 
a roaring fire in the fireplace to set the " northers " 
at defiance, they opened, unpacked, sorted and 



1 1 8 In Camp and Tepee 

arranged. One box might be from some girl's 
society, and when the mass of tissue-paper was lifted 
out the missionaries wouid see rows on rows of little 
dolls, all dressed in " come off and on " clothes, each 
with a tiny note from its maker pinned on the 
dainty skirt. Some of these Miss Jensen would lift 
out with shining eyes and place in her cupboard to 
give to sick children to gladden the long hard days 
of illness in camp. 

Mrs. Koe would pounce with joy on the piles of 
warm mittens and little under-flannels that some 
motherly soul had sent, and both would bend with 
the interest of surgeons over the toys broken in 
transit, which a little well-placed glue would trans- 
form into seven days' wonders to the youngsters of 
camp and school. A box of gaudy tree-ornaments 
was welcomed as a treasure of surpassing worth. 
"When the workers found that some Ladies' Aid had 
been inspired to include two generous boxes of good 
old-fashioned hard candy of gay but harmless colors 
they just had to laugh with delight, 

It was a long job arranging all these treasures 
into shares in which the most envious eye could see 
no discrimination, but at last it was done, the 
window-shades were pulled down and the door 
closed on the room full of knobby queer bundles. 

A few days before Christmas the agent had his 
men out searching the canyons and timber-lands 
for a suitable tree and at last a sturdy wide-branch- 
ing cedar had been found and brought in to be set 
up in the school assembly-room. The platform was 



The Beginning of the Harvest 119 

high and the ceiling low so that the top had to be 
taken off the tree, which gave it an odd truncated 
appearance, but when hung with the bright balls 
and pop-corn strings and piled with gifts, it was a 
very creditable representative of the Christmas-tree 
family. 

Mr. and Mrs. Kincaide, Miss Jensen, Dr. and 
Mrs. Koe were given seats at the side of the room 
to watch the children march in led by little Arm- 
strong Spotted Horn who was so tiny that no boy's 
garments could be found for him and he appeared 
in stiffly starched little skirts which his close-clipped 
black head and manly stride oddly belied. When 
the children were in place the older Indians were 
admitted and filled the seats or stood quietly at the 
back of the room with pride and joy on the dark 
faces. 

There were a number of Christmas songs to 
which the parents listened with beaming faces, 
patting out the time with soft moccasined feet, and 
the recitation of the Christmas story as told by 
Luke in the slow singing enunciation of the Indian 
child and then the presenting of the gifts from 
the " Giving-tree " began. One little mite, a doll 
clasped tightly in her arms and a bag of candy in 
one chubby hand, pointed imperiously to a brilliant 
crimson ball hanging temptingly near, and a storm 
was only averted by a hasty explanation that those 
were only to " make pretty " and that they came 
and went with the " Jesus-tree " but were never 
given away. At last the giving was " all cut off " 



120 In Camp and Tepee 



and the long line of youngsters trooped past, each 
with his treasure tightly clutched with one hand, 
extending the other with ashy " Merry Christmas " 
to the mission-workers who stood to watch them 
come. 

Christmas Day itself being Jesus' birthday was 
always celebrated by a service in the little church 
when the Indians brought their gifts to Him. It 
was long before the missionaries could forget old 
Cheyenne Chief, the blind Arapahoe, who came 
protesting in eloquent signs that half his heart was 
crying and half was laughing. 

" My heart is glad,' 3 he said, " because now to- 
day, for the first time. I have something to give to 
Jesus. But half of my heart is crying because I 
did not hear of this ' giving-Sunday until I had 
spent half of the money I had." And he came for- 
ward to lay a fifty-cent piece on the plate, one of 
the two he had received for crying the camp at the 
camp-meeting in August. When the money which 
kept coming from Indians too far away to reach the 
church was counted, it was found that these people, 
out of their poverty, had given one hundred dollars. 

The next week the tree was set up in the church, 
its pointed top lashed on again, and covered with 
the newly acquired brilliant ornaments all carefully 
hung good side forward and making a brave show- 
ing. Underneath were piles of quilts and blankets, 
the regular gift for the Christian women ; toys, 
games, and dolls, well displayed for the joy of the 
camp little ones, and boxes of things for the men. 



The Beginning of the Harvest 121 



Then the audience was admitted, pushing, laughing, 
and hurrying for a place. 

Occasionally during the short service it seemed as 
if every one of the numerous babies began a wail- 
ing protest at once, and Miss Jensen and Mrs. Eoe 
each hastily seized a candy bag and, while Dr. Eoe 
suspended operations, the two women hurried along 
the aisle to pacify the most vociferous. When the 
giving was over the audience filed out, stopping at 
the door to shake hands with the missionaries and 
to receive the bag of nuts and candy that was wait- 
ing for them. Big fat Mrs. Creeping Bear led the 
way, holding under one stout arm the wriggling 
form of little Peter clad in a complete set of scarlet 
flannels, which she considered much too fine for the 
retired use planned by the manufacturer. 

The next morning the sick and the aged gathered 
at the Lodge and the old men up-stairs and the old 
women down-stairs were fitted out with the cast-off 
clothing, often ludicrous in its misfit, for which they 
returned surprised but tremulous " Ahoes." Some- 
times a young woman, ignorant of the custom, 
would come in to claim a share, only to be told in 
spite of her voluble protest that the Jesus road was 
to give freely to the old, the withered, and the 
helpless, but that if she wanted anything she could 
go into the next room and get work from Mr. Kin- 
caide and earn the money to supply her needs. If 
the shrill comments continued, some broad-shoul- 
dered Christian woman who had led her old mother 
up to the Lodge would rise and administer a rebuke 



122 In Camp and Tepee 



that would cause the malcontent to retire abashed. 
When the last old Indian had uttered his solemn 
and formal thanks, dignified in spite of the eclipsing 
effect of a coat and trousers many sizes too large 
for him, the Christmas festivities were over. 
****** 

On their way back from Europe, Dr. and Mrs. 
Roe stopped in Chicago to visit Dr. Hall, an emi- 
nent oculist. The missionary was led to talk of the 
terrible prevalence of eye-trouble and blindness 
among his Indians. 

" Oh, how I wish a man like you could take them 
in hand," he sighed. 

To which the doctor answered, laughing : 

" Perhaps I shall some day, when business is 
slack. I am sure I should like to." 

After the missionaries were back on the field Dr. 
Roe wrote to the oculist to know if he would be 
willing to make good his laughing offer. All the 

o © © © 

missionary had to give for the week's work was one 
hundred dollars, scarcely enough to pay railroad 
fares, but there was much for the oculist to do if he 
would come. Although the request came at a time 
when to leave the city involved a great sacrifice, he 
consented. 

" It is fine to watch the doctor at work," wrote 
Mrs. Roe. " You must get an idea of it out of his 
wife for he is so modest, but he is just perfect in the 
way he takes hold of the work and people. Yes- 
terday he operated on old Iron Shirt for cataract, 
and removed pterigium from both eyes of Creeping 



The Beginning of the Harvest 123 

Bear. This morning he treated a steady procession 
of Indians and could not see them all, and this after- 
noon it will be so again. . . . Eunners have 
gone to all the distant camps to bring in the blind, 
and one does not have to look far to find them. 

" I wish you could have heard old blind Cheyenne 
Chief address him this morning. He said : 4 Medi- 
cine Chief, I have been praying, praying, for just a 
little light, not full sight, but just a little, so I can 
find my way to church. I want to see the faces of 
all these people who have given me the Jesus 
road. I have prayed and Jesus has sent you to us, 
and I ask you to take pity on me, and give me just 
a little light. I have been blind for many colds, 
and I am old, so all I ask is only a little light.' 

M He was dressed in a new suit and was clean all 
over to honor the Chief, and with every breath he 
ejaculated : ' Ah-ho ! Ah-ho ! ' (Thank you ! Thank 
you !) It broke the doctor all up, and I don't 
wonder. 

" It was one of the most interesting sights I ever 
saw here to see these old wrecks of humanity, men 
and women, half or wholly blind, coming out of 
the tepees and trusting themselves to the doctor as 
if they had always known him. It is very unusual, 
as any one knows who has ever dealt with the Indian 
people. For many a long month, it may be for 
years, our hands will be strengthened and our 
words better understood when we try to make them 
believe there is such a thing as a new nature which 
God can give to those who ask it. They are so 



124 In Camp and Tepee 



used to being cheated and robbed that when a 
white man comes from far off, who never saw them 
nor their troubles, just to 4 take pity on them,' as 
their phrase has it, and to try to help them, they 
can account for it in no other way than that he has 
6 the new heart.' " 

It was during this winter of 1903 and 1904 that Dr. 
Eoe was made superintendent of all the Oklahoma 
work both white and Indian, and a heavy load of 
responsibility settled on his shoulders which he soon 
found he was not able to carry without help. Con- 
sequently the Board sent an assistant pastor to take 
some of the Colony work and to relieve him. 

The newcomer, Arthur P. Brokaw, was a young 
man just graduated from theological seminary, who 
would take a year or two of training with the older 
worker before being sent to take charge of the new 
mission among the Comanches. With his eager 
young enthusiasm, his beautiful face and his win- 
ning way he soon made himself a place among the 
Colony workers. He gathered the Indian boys of 
school and camp into a " Boys' Club," striving to 
offset the charms of the growing Mescal Worship 
that was seizing hold of the young men. He visited 
the camps, sometimes just sitting and chatting in 
the sign-talk, sometimes making them all laugh at 
his efforts to pronounce their long, hard, Indian 
names. With practice he was developing an un- 
usual facility in using the interpreted talk, a vehicle 
of expression to which some men, even after years, 
never become accustomed. 



The Beginning of the Harvest 125 



That winter was a very severe one. Snow fell 
and lay long on the north side of the little church. 
The suffering in the frail tepees on the flat before 
the parsonage was extreme. More than one old 
woman sick and alone had good cause to remember 
the young worker who carried her water, laid in a 
stock of wood and built up the comfortable fire. 
All this the Indians watched and slowly were mak- 
ing ready to take him into the inner circle of their 
lives, when, suddenly, he was stricken with a com- 
plicated form of typhoid and, after a few weeks of 
suffering, died. 

The news of his illness had spread like wild-fire. 
In the Christian Councils, meeting during the hot 
weather out under the shades in camp, his name 
was often heard in Two Crows' tremulous prayers. 
Now the Indians took up the word of his death 
and carried it far and wide, calling on those who 
loved him to do him the last honor in their power. 
The crowd that gathered for the service was more 
than the little church could hold. The Indians 
had broken through their immemorial reserve, 
and were openly weeping. One after another 
rose to tell of some kindness he had done, and 
all ended with the broken words, "He was my 
friend, I loved him." 

The shock of the young man's death gave the 
final propelling force to the weight of the years 
of faithful work that had gone before. The slow 
tribes were moving at last. All through the fall 
the turning tide swept on. Before spring between 



126 In Camp and Tepee 



twenty and thirty of the prominent men had taken 
their stand in the Road. At the camp-meeting of 
1906 twenty-two more were baptized, and the mis- 
sionaries then saw that the first stage in the task 
of getting their message to the Cheyennes and 
Arapahoes was past. The day of enunciation was 
over, the era of explanation had come. There was 
not a family that had not heard them many times. 
All knew the message. All had a more or less 
complete grasp of its fundamentals. The question 
was now : Would they accept it or reject it ? For 
those who accepted, the missionaries must be ready 
to act as patient guides, tiding them over the dan- 
gerous period of reaction which must inevitably 
follow on the high enthusiasm of their first step- 
ping out on the new road, never losing courage, 
explaining the same things over and over, till that 
slowest of all growths, a new code of morals, 
might take root deep in the life. This was a very 
different task from the initial planting of the seed, 
and one whose history cannot be written, made up 
as it is of the imperceptible things. 

The pioneer days were over, and instead there 
was a future of less vivid fascination perhaps but 
more permanent results. With full equipment and 
perfected organization the workers set their faces 
towards its weightier responsibilities. 



YII 



PRISONERS OF WAR 

SOME time about the year 1880 the Chihua- 
hua band of the Apache tribe, stirred by 
real and fancied wrongs, took up their arms 
and went on the war-path. The phrase " Cruel as 
an Apache" was even then a common one, for 
many atrocities perpetrated with fiendish ingenuity 
had already made the tribal name a synonym of 
terror. But in the medicine-man, Geronimo, whom 
some one has called " that superlative savage," this 
band of Apaches found a leader of extraordinary 
ability. Matching a bloodthirsty brutality with a 
cunning and a knowledge of strategy that has 
never been excelled in the long annals of Indian 
warfare, he held the United States army with their 
Mexican and Indian allies at bay for years. They 
were years of brilliant generalship, of dauntless 
courage and incredible endurance on the part of 
both the leader and his band. " No man who went 
through that campaign," as Dr. Roe says, "can 
sneer at the Apache as a soldier." 

Old soldiers can tell of continuous marching 
over the mountains and through the deserts of 
Arizona and New Mexico. They can tell how the 
undersized Apache women with their babies on 
their backs outdistanced the horses of the United 

127 



i 28 In Camp and Tepee 



States cavalry, not once nor in an occasional burst 
of speed, but day after day and week after week. 
They can tell that when the end came and the 
worn-out remnant of the band surrendered in 1886, 
it was only because, exhausted as they were by 
famine, thirst, and incessant marching, they could 
drag themselves no further. 

On the termination of the war, it was decided to 
transport the band to the East since the hatred and 
fear with which the surrounding whites regarded 
them was such that it would be almost impossible 
to protect them from violence in the West. There 
they would be held as prisoners of war to prevent 
any further outbreak. When the prisoners were 
herded on the train, however, there were among 
their number some who had taken no part what- 
ever in the raid, having been consistently neutral, 
and also a few men who had enlisted with the 
United States troops and had served as scouts 
throughout the whole campaign, the reward of 
their loyalty being to share the captivity of Gero- 
nimo's followers. The band was first taken, a part 
to Fort Picken and the rest to Fort Marion in 
Florida, but after a year they were removed to the 
Mount Vernon Barracks in Alabama. And in these 
hot lowlands the mountain Indians lived and sick- 
ened and died till after seven years public opinion, 
aroused to what was little less than wholesale 
murder, caused those who remained to be taken 
to the Fort Sill military reservation in Oklahoma 
in 1894. 



Prisoners of War 



129 



The Indians were told that now their wanderings 
were over and that here they were to remain in 
undisturbed possession of permanent homes. The 
Government proceeded at once to the carrying out 
of these promises. The plan was to abandon the 
Fort Sill military post as soon as the Apaches were 
sufficiently well settled to warrant such a move and 
to divide the reservation among the three hundred 
and eight prisoners of war. The first calculation 
showed, however, that there was not enough land 
in the military reserve to give to each Indian the 
usual allotment of one hundred and sixty acres. 
Accordingly a council was called of the Kiowas, 
Comanches and Kiowas-Apaches, within whose 
reservation Fort Sill lay, and its members heartily 
assented to the following agreement : 

" We, the undersigned, chiefs and head men of 
the Kiowa, Comanche, and Kiowa- Apache tribes, 
assembled in open council with our agent and with 
Capt. H. L. Scott, Seventh Cavalry, in charge of 
Apache prisoners of war, do willingly agree, having 
had due notice and consideration, to the additions 
by executive order, of the following described 
portions of our reservation (approximately 28,000 
acres) to the military reservation of Fort Sill, 
Oklahoma, for the permanent settlement thereon 
of the Apache prisoners of war." 

Thus were arrangements made complete. And 
here Mr. "Wright, when he first reached the field, 
had found Geronimo's band under the direction of 
Captain Scott, who had settled them in family 



130 In Camp and Tepee 



groups and set them at work breaking out land, 
building houses and making fences. Encouraged 
by the repeated promises of government officials, 
and even of the President himself, and reenf orced 
by such material evidence of good faith, the home- 
less men pressed eagerly forward to gain the home 
and liberty for themselves and then 1 children which 
they had every reason to believe lay but a little 
way before them. 

****** 

Mr. Wright had come, he had held the council 1 
with the head men of the band. The school had 
been agreed upon, and the first worker had been 
found in the person of Miss Maud Adkisson, who 
was to be trained nurse, teacher, and never-failing 
friend to those Indians. Let the story of her 
coming stand in her own words. 

" About two o'clock of a hot day in August, 
1899, I left the train at Kush Springs, Oklahoma, 
and climbed the hill to the one hotel in the little 
village. I was assigned to a small dirty room with 
one window. The first discovery I made was the 
broken lock on my door. This and the excessive 
heat caused me to spend a sleepless night. Isext 
morning at seven o'clock I entered the stage with 
two or three other travellers to make the twenty- 
eight mile journey to Fort Sill. Having, since my 
arrival, looked only with trepidation into the future, 
I now had my first taste of the joy of Western life. 
The air was like a tonic (a little damp because of a 

1 See above pp. 73 aDd 74. 



Prisoners of War 



light fog that was hovering over the scrub oaks and 
nestling in the dimples of the distant hills) and de- 
lightfully exhilarating. To add to our excitement, 
a few miles out we almost ran into a herd of ante- 
lope that scurried away, and in a few moments 
disappeared like spectres in the morning mist. 
Again the day grew hot. Not a house did we see 
on that long journey with the exception of the little 
cabin called the i half-way house,' as its name im- 
plied, half-way between Rush Springs and Fort 
Sill. At this place we changed stages, arriving at 
Fort Sill about one o'clock. 

" A military post, two hundred and sixty Indians 
noted for their warfare, not a relative or friend 
within a thousand miles — I wondered if I should 
become lonely. But from the time my feet rested 
on the soil of the reservation, I loved the place, my 
work, and the Indians. 

" At the trader's store I was met by Rev. Frank 
Hall Wright and taken to the home of Nahwatz, a 
Comanche Indian. During the hot summer days 
the family . . . lived under a leaf-covered ar- 
bor. Here we found them, and without having 
knowledge of each other's language except as our 
words were interpreted, we greeted one another 
with the greatest cordiality. Dorothy, Isahwatz' 
niece, speaking English in a sweet, precise way, 
asked me to accompany her to the house. Imagine 
my dismay upon entering my room to find the 
mattress presenting a bare face to the world, and 
that the room was used for a storehouse. Dorothy 



132 In Camp and Tepee 



got busy to make me comfortable, for had she not 
spent six or seven years at the government school, 
and did she not know how white people live? 
First, she searched through her trunk and found 
one sheet and a long piece of bleached muslin. She 
put the two pieces on the bed, on top of these a 
heavy comfortable. To reassure me, she informed 
me that she herself would occupy room and bed 
with me. So, tired from my long journey, I re- 
tired early and slept. I felt no fear with my 
Indian friends as I had the previous night in the 
hotel with rough white people. Somewhere in the 
wee, small hours Dorothy crept into bed, wearing 
all her garments of the day and smelling strongly 
of the cigarettes she had smoked. Cuddled under 
her arm slept her pet dog, and disporting them- 
selves on the dog were many, many fleas. The 
fleas did not confine themselves to the dog. 

"The family urged upon the new missionary 
their hospitality. At first I did my best to eat 
with them, but how could I drink strong black 
coffee when I had never used coffee in my life, or 
eat of the jerked beef stew when at intervals the 
grimy hand of each member of the family dipped 
in a chunk of bread, or, in fact, how could I eat 
anything when I discovered that a much soiled 
little baby, Samuel by name, was bathed in the 
selfsame dish-pan that was used for kneading the 
dough ? " 

A week later Mr. Wright brought Dr. and Mrs. 
Roe to see his new worker. As they drove along 



Prisoners of War 



133 



from the post to Nahwatz' place he explained the 
situation. 

" I have put her in with Nahwatz and his family 
as a starter," he said. 

" Frank ! " exclaimed Mrs. Roe in horror. " Not 
without her own food and tent ? " 

" Yes. I thought it was just as well for her to 
have her bad dose at the beginning. If she is the 
stuff that is going to quit, we shall know it soon 
enough. And if she is the stuff that can see and 
love them in spite of the dirt, we shall know that, 
too." 

Dr. Roe would never forget his first sight of the 
new worker as she stood among the dusky little 
group, her hand resting on Dorothy's shoulder. A 
tall, slender girl with a face of delicate beauty and 
a crown of curling golden hair. Nor would Miss 
Adkisson ever forget the leap with which her heart 
went out to the frail missionary with the vital, 
compelling eyes and the smile of steady good cheer. 
* * * * * 

As soon as possible a small frame building was 
put up, one end partitioned off into two small 
rooms for Miss Adkisson and her assistant teacher, 
and the rest used for the school. Fifty-five or 
sixty children came that first year ; small girls with 
long, full-skirted dresses, just escaping the ground, 
and a dozen or more strings of heavy beads about 
the neck, and little shock-headed boys in long, 
baggy trousers and heavy shoes. Thin, dirty little 
creatures they were, many of them diseased, and 



134 I n Camp and Tepee 



all of them half-starved. Often they would walk 
long distances to school, carrying a handful of 
parched corn for their whole midday meal. At 
noon, when this morsel was devoured, they would 
come and watch the missionaries at their dinner, 
and occasionally a very little one would cry from 
sheer hunger. 

This was more than the teachers could stand, 
and they devised a plan by which, drawing one- 
third of the children's rations from the Government 
and adding to that from the generosity of the 
Eastern churches, they could supply the hungry 
little Apaches with one square meal a day. Thus 
the progress of learning was greatly increased. 

With the older people it was more difficult to 
start. Miss Adkisson drove in her light hack from 
hilltop village to hilltop village, stopping at the 
queer two-room houses with the barn-like opening 
leading clear through the centre, and visiting with 
the families living in the rooms thus divided, urg- 
ing all to come to the services in the little school- 
house ; but to no avail. 

Then one day she called to a meeting the In- 
dian scouts, some of whom were men of influence, 
and two, G-eronimo and Naiche, as Medicine Chief 
and War Chief in the old days, had been leaders of 
the old-time raids. They gathered in the school- 
room, silent men, all in the khaki uniform of the 
government scout. They inserted their stalwart 
forms with some difficulty into the children's low 
seats, but maintained a certain dignity neverthe- 



Prisoners of War 



»35 



less. Through her interpreter, Asa Daklugie, Miss 
Adkisson explained the new religion, trying to give 
its main principles and emphasizing for these rep- 
resentatives of law and order its great civilizing 
influences. The men were interested and all but 
three said they would like to hear more of this new 
way, and would try to influence others to come to 
the meetings, as well as being in attendance them- 
selves. Thus the small beginning was made. 

One night came a messenger with the news of 
Dorothy's sudden death and a few days later came 
Nahwatz leading Dorothy's little sister, Tocsi, a 
tiny curly-haired big-eyed slip of a child clinging 
to her uncle's hand. 

" Dorothy is dead," said the old man with his 
quick expressive gestures. " Now, to-day, we have 
no one to read to us from God's book. There is no 
one to tell us the words of the missionary. We 
walk just the same as in the dark. Here," and he 
drew the little five-year-old forward, " is Tocsi, 
Dorothy's sister. We give her to you. Teach her 
the white man's talk. Teach her to read God's book 
that she may lead us, just the same as Dorothy." 

"But, my friend," urged the missionary, "look 
about you. You see we three women are sitting 
down in just two rooms — just two. There is no 
place for Tocsi." 

Nahwatz pointed to a corner. 

" Lay down her shawl," he pleaded. " It is all 
the room she needs. Take her and give her the 
road." 



136 In Camp and Tepee 



Miss Adkisson could not refuse. She stooped 
and held out her hands to the little girl who after 
a swift upward glance at her uncle laid her tiny 
slim hands in the missionary's clasp and allowed 
herself to be drawn close. Then with one arm 
about the worker's neck still without a word she 
turned about and gave the old man a radiant smile. 
JSahwatz mounted his pony and rode away satisfied. 

Thus it was that the Fort Sill Mission came by 
its first Comanche interpreter. 

* * * * * . * 

Through all the long years of fighting against 
Geronimo, the Apache Noche had been loyal to the 
Government and had done faithful service as a 
United States scout. Yet when the band was 
finally captured and rounded up to be taken to 
their prison, Noche and his family were gathered 
in with the rest to share a rebel's punishment. 
The injustice of it was not lost on the Indian, but 
during years of unmerited suffering the sense of in- 
jury grew which each day's experience but ground 
deeper into his soul. Every detail of his existence 
was under the surveillance and forcible restraint of 
the very Government which he had risked his life 
unnumbered times to serve. 

Was it this very fact which made the idea of a 
God of Infinite and Absolute Justice especially ap- 
pealing ? Perhaps so, for Noche was the first of 
the leading Apache men to take up the "new 
road." He made his decision and Miss Adkisson 
decided that he should be baptized when Dr. Roe 



Prisoners of War 



*37 



came down from Colony to conduct the Easter 
service. 

Then suddenly without any warning on Satur- 
day night before Easter his only child, a baby, 
died. The other Indians were quick to taunt him 
with what they considered a result of his change of 
faith. 

" Noche has told us how strong his God is," they 
said. " His God was strong enough to save the 
life of this baby, yet his God let it die. It is just 
the same as if his God killed his baby. And to- 
morrow," they jeered, " to-morrow he will stand 
up and promise to follow the God who has killed 
his baby. He is a great man, this Noche ; he has 
always done things we could not do. Years ago 
he was different. He trusted the lying white 
men, and now he trusts this God." 

In stony silence Noche sat by the side of the 
little dead form while they dug the grave and 
talked. It was as if he had not heard. His heart 
was frozen with grief. He could not realize it yet. 
He could not think. He could only sit by his 
baby in silence. Later, when they were gone, his 
heart would begin to stir again and then he would 
remember the bitter words. 

It was raining heavily Easter morning but by 
eleven the storm had passed and a number of In- 
dians had already gathered in the schoolroom 
when the door was flung violently open and Noche 
strode in, his strong face set and strange and his 
eyes blazing. Men and women fell back before 



In Camp and Tepee 



him and he pushed on unhindered to where the 
missionary and the interpreter were waiting until 
time to begin the service. Then with his hands 
clasping and unclasping he poured a torrent of pas- 
sionate Apache. 

" See what your God has done to me," he cried. 
" I gave my heart to Him. I promised to follow 
Him and I would have served Him all my life. 
He took my heart. You told me that. He took 
my heart. And now my little child is dead. He 
has killed my little child, your God of Justice. I 
was a foolish old woman to listen to you white 
people. The justice of your God is like the justice 
of your Government. I fought for your Govern- 
ment, and I am a prisoner. I served your God and 
my baby is dead. But JSoche is not a woman. I 
know your road. I shall not serve you again. I 
shall not serve your God. I have spoken." 

The missionary listened to the interpreted words 
with grave eyes fastened in silent sympathy on the 
distorted face of the warrior. When Asa had 
finished. Dr. Koe took it up. 

" Noche, when you were going on the war-path 
in the old days and you made ready your bows and 
your arrows you were very careful. You went up 
into the mountains to get your bow. You made sure 
that you could see no knot or crack or warp in the 
piece of wood that you cut. Then you took it 
home and you cut it to suit you and then you 
tested it. You bent it and you twisted it with all 
your strength, that you might be sure there was no 



Prisoners of War 



» 39 



hidden weakness that would make it break in your 
hand. If it had been a little thing that you w 7 ere 
making any piece of wood might do ; but you had 
to be very certain before you trusted your life to 
your bow." 

The look of sullen hate had been slowly fading 
from the Indian's face and now he sat forward 
with hands twisted together and eyes fixed on the 
white man in what seemed like an agony of sus- 
pense. 

Dr. Roe continued. 

" God is like a strong man who goes out to war 
and His Christians are the weapons with w r hich He 
fights and on whom His victory or defeat depends. 
His Christians are not little things to Him and He 
must be very sure before He trusts one of them. 

" So it is, Noche, that there are two kinds of 
trouble in this world. One kind you know. It is 
that which we bring on ourselves. If we lead bad 
lives, our bodies get sick. If we drink then we are 
poor and hungry. If we sin our hearts are heavy 
and we cannot rest. Those are the troubles we 
bring on ourselves just the same as a man breaks 
the law and goes to prison. But, Noche, there are 
other troubles that we do not bring upon ourselves 
and these are God's testings. He bends you and 
twists you to see if there is any hidden weak spot 
in your heart. If a man is strong, then God is 
very careful and bends and twists him every way 
just as a warrior is more careful with his war-bow 
than he is with the bow he uses on the hunt. If 



140 In Camp and Tepee 



you should break when He needed you most it 
might mean defeat for this whole Apache band. 
He is very careful with His war -bows." 

The Indian rose and silently the two fighters 
shook hands. 

K I shall not break in His Hand," said Noche 
simply. " He can trust me." 

The room was now full and Sunday-school was 
already beginning. A small group of Comanches 
sat at one side mostly made up of Nahwatz and his 
family, but the main audience were the short, thick- 
set Apaches, After the teaching of the lesson, Dr. 
Koe, who had stepped outside for a moment, came 
back to give the Easter talk. He held a glowing 
crimson callirrhoe in his hand that he had picked 
outside the door. Asa, the Apache, took his place 
on the left, little Tocsi was lifted to a desk and 
stood within the circle of the missionary's arm, and 
the sermon began. On one of the front seats sat 
Noche, leaning forward, his chin resting on his palm, 
his eyes fixed now on the preacher, now on the deli- 
cate crimson flower in his hand. 

With the callirrhoe as his text Dr. Roe taught the 
lesson of death and life everlasting. As he talked, 
into the anguished eyes of the Apache father be- 
fore him came the dawning of peace. 

****** 

Nahwatz had been watching Tocsi carefully, and 
he saw that the little girl had not only been learn- 
ing to talk the white man's talk and to read, but 
she had been gaining steadily in weight and strength. 



Prisoners of War 



141 



He had a constant measure of the child's advance 
in the person of her younger sister, and when he 
brought Eachel to the mission and compared the 
sturdy figure and fat little legs of Miss Adkisson's 
charge with the frail form of the little camp sister 
about whose slight little waist one of his bandana 
handkerchiefs, arranged as a blanket, fell in ample 
folds, he came to a natural and obvious conclusion. 
Eachel must live at the mission, too. 

Then one of the Apaches brought in word of lit- 
tle Grace Sundayman, a mere baby, who was being 
abused and all but killed by a drinking grand- 
mother. The workers, now three in number, had 
moved into a small four-room cottage built for them 
beside the schoolhouse and, giviug up one of these 
rooms, they fitted a wooden frame with shelves to 
hold the necessary clothing, set up three cots and 
took the children in, each worker making one little 
girl her especial charge. The success of the experi- 
ment was so obvious that in a few months the officer 
in charge at Fort Sill called their attention to a 
small Apache boy named Yincent who was being 
dreadfully neglected, and asked the workers to take 
him also. The ladies felt they could not refuse 
although it made living conditions in the little cot- 
tage very crowded and uncomfortable. 

Four children were not all the needy ones in the 
tribe, however, and pressure for admission for oth- 
ers was continually brought to bear by military au- 
thorities and Indians alike, until the Board decided 
to build an orphanage which could give room for 



142 In Camp and Tepee 



twenty children and a larger workers' house to ac- 
commodate the necessarily increased force. The 
four-room cottage was later turned into a nursery 
to give a place for six more of the littlest children, 
.and thus the work grew. 

In all advance, however, the missionaries had one 
powerful implacable foe to meet. Geronimo, the 
old Medicine Chief, whose sidelong glance of hate 
had won him the name of being possessed of the 
powerful " evil eye/' and whose grip on his band 
had been unbroken and undisputed for years, found 
his influence slipping through his fingers. The 
young men were enlisting as scouts, were drawn 
more and more often to the mission, and owned 
other influence than that of the old medicine-man. 
The children had other teachers and no longer 
either feared or looked up to him. At last even 
Naiche, the war chief and his old-time running- 
mate, became a Christian, and the old man stood 
alone. With all the passionate intensity of a ruth- 
less ambitious nature he hated the missionaries, and 
their Jesus road that had robbed him of his power. 
He was too good a general not to realize that there 
was nothing he could do, however, and he retreated 
in sullen acquiescence to his lonely village, content- 
ing himself by showing his hostility now and again 
in some underhanded scheme. 

Then at the third camp-meeting it was noticed 
that Geronimo's wife was on the ground, and had 
set up a tent. And on Sunday noon, the last day 
of the meeting, the old medicine-man himself sud- 



Prisoners of War 143 

denly appeared in camp. Mr. Wright sought him 
out, talked long and earnestly with him, and ob- 
tained his promise to come to the evening service. 

True to his word he came early and selected for 
himself a position in the front rank where he sat, a 
prominent figure, his small crooked hands folded in 
his lap and his narrow cruel eyes peering, watchful, 
from the wrinkled old face. Some of the workers 
wondered with a shudder what his next move would 
be. He sat motionless until near the end of the 
service, when he suddenly leaped to his feet and 
poured out an impassioned address to his people. 
To the amazement of the missionaries when the 
sharp explosive utterances were interpreted to them, 
he was saying that the " Jesus road " was best, and 
he wanted all his people to walk in it, concluding 
with the words : " Now we begin to think that the 
Christian white people love us." 

Later he asked Professor Bergen of Michigan, 
who had been helping with the services, to pray for 
him. 

" Tell your people," he said, " that I love them. 
Tell them the heart of Chief Geronimo is good 
towards them." 

There was in all his talk a vein of self-importance 
that the experienced workers were quick to feel and 
to suspect. They gave him what welcome and en- 
couragement they could, but they refused to accept 
or examine him for membership until they could be 
sure this strange move was sincere, and not a blind 
for some deep-laid scheme. 



144 I n Camp and Tepee 



Nearly a year passed. For weeks at a time 
Geronimo would show what was for him a strange 
humility and teachableness, then, as unaccountably, 
he would greet the missionaries with his former 
cold arrogance. They would just feel certain that 
he had finally laid aside his old ways, when he 
would suddenly go off on a terrible spree, and be 
shut up in the fort for days. So it went until the 
camp-meeting of July, 1903. 

The white canvas of the new " gospel-tent " was 
spread under the great shadowy trees of the oak 
grove on the bend of Medicine Creek and an 
unusually large camp sprang up about it, but Gero- 
nimo was not there, for the workers learned he 
had been thrown from his wife's pony and was too 
sick to come. The first meeting was over and Mr. 
Wright and Professor Bergen, who was again on 
the field, were sitting under one of the tents, trying 
to rest in the scorching afternoon heat, when the 
slow approach of a horse's trampling feet caused 
them both to look up to see Geronimo on his 
famous sorrel racing-pony, which was walking 
slowly and carrying an evident sufferer. He held 
out his hand as the men came to greet him, and 
then, pointing to his chest, he made the sign " sick." 
The two missionaries helped him to the ground and 
brought him into the tent. 

He had started in plenty of time for the meeting, 
he explained, but he found he could not endure a 
trot and had been obliged to walk his horse the 
whole way. He was sorry he had been late. 



Prisoners of War 



»45 



Big stalwart Naiche, who was passing, saw the 
old man, and coming into the tent sat silently 
down beside him. As if it were a signal, the old 
Medicine Chief turned and talked rapidly to the 
interpreter. 

"He says," said Benedict, "that he is in the 
dark. He knows he is not on the right road and 
he wants to find Jesus." 

Naiche's strong, fine face blazed with joy and he 
listened, nodding and smiling while the mission- 
aries explained and made straight the road before 
Geronimo's feet. But it was not until the very 
last meeting that he could find courage to humble 
himself before his tribe. Then, with all the pride 
gone from his hard old face, and the small crooked 
hands working, he pleaded with the missionaries. 

" I am old," he said, " and broken by this fall I 
have had. I am without friends, for my people 
have turned from me. I am full of sins, and I 
walk alone in the dark. I see that you mission- 
aries have got a way to get sin out of the heart, 
and I want to take that better road and hold it till I 
die." Then in low, trembling tones came strange 
words from Geronimo, the fearless general of In- 
dian warfare, the proud leader of the Chiricahua 
Apaches. " I want help. I am afraid to die with- 
out God. When the end comes, I want to go to 
Him." 

He lifted those delicate, twisted hands, which 
had been reddened with the blood of women and 
children, and stained with the guilt of countless 



146 In Camp and Tepee 



ferocities, above his head and his voice sank lower 
still. The interpreter bowed his head and the mis- 
sionaries knew that Geronimo was praying. 

The task of examining the old man was given to 
Dr. Koe, and carefully, painstakingly, the mission- 
ary went over the grounds of Christian belief. Gero- 
nimo's answers were clear and unmistakable, show- 
ing that under the mask of arrogant indifference 
he had long been learning and the truth was deep 
in his heart. 

" Friends," said Dr. Roe, when he had finished, 
turning to his fellow workers, "no consistory in 
our church could refuse to admit a man to mem- 
bership after such a confession." 

A week later Geronimo was baptized with six 
others. After the ceremony his people crowded 
about him ; Naiche gathered him in a straining 
embrace and women and children clung to his 
hands till the man's hard, cruel face softened and 
grew almost bright with joy. He lived for seven 
years to walk his new road — seven years during 
which the missionaries almost came to question the 
wisdom of their ever taking him in. 

The new road was especially hard for the old 
medicine-man. He knew when he wanted money 
that he had only to ride in to the post and gamble, 
for he was so clever that neither white man nor 
Indian could beat him. He was cursed, too, by the 
notoriety of his early days, and there was always 
some unscrupulous curiosity-seeker who would offer 
him whiskey in the hope of hearing him talk. He 



Prisoners of War 



H7 



was an old man to strive to break with lifelong 
habit, and it is small wonder that his progress was 
that of a man who continually falls yet continually 
rises and struggles on. He died at last from the 
exposure due to a drunken spree, when he lay out 
on the prairie all night in the winter rain. Yet he 
tried, he honestly tried, and who are we to judge 
him — we who often make failures of roads far less 
hard to travel than that which stretched before the 
Apache medicine-man, when he took his stand in 
the autumn of 1903 ? 

This one incident would have been enough to 
make this camp-meeting in the grove memorable, 
but for another tribe as well it marked an epoch. 
Six years of patient seed-sowing on the part of the 
workers, and the silent example of unswerving 
faithfulness set by Nahwatz and his family had 
told at last, and the Comanches, too, were moving. 
They came in crowds to that camp-meeting, out- 
numbering the Apaches two to one. They brought 
with them their interpreter, Howard White Wolf, 
and came faithfully to every meeting, sitting, at- 
tentive and picturesque listeners, making a sharp 
contrast with their vivid Indian dress, their painted 
faces and their brilliant shawls and blankets, to the 
khaki uniforms and civilized garb of the Apaches. 

Sunday evening a number of their leading men, 
headed by Nahwatz, came to Mr. Wright. 

"We have come to this meeting," they said, 
" and we have heard of your talk to these Apaches. 
Now we think it would be good if you and these 



148 In Camp and Tepee 



workers here would come to the Comanche's land 
and give this road to us. Our hearts are hungry 
to hear about this ' new way' and we think it 
would be good if you came and talked to us as you 
talk to these Apaches/' 

Mr. "Wright, who had been waiting six long years 
for such words as these, gladly promised to meet 
with them, and turned with a singing heart to prep- 
aration for the first substantial step towards a 
Comanche Mission. 



VIII 



BEGINNINGS AMONG THE COMANCHES 
A TEAR or so before the camp-meeting in 



the grove, Mr. Wright had been driving 



X JL. across the Comanche country on his way 
to Fort Sill with Mrs. Page, when she suddenly 
pointed to a band of Indians riding towards them. 
At the head came a tall man in full Indian dress. 
The long fringes of leggings and moccasin were 
sweeping his horse's flanks, and he carried a Mescal 
rattle in his right hand. The man was broad- 
shouldered, magnificent. His large head was held 
high, almost thrown back, and the heavy-lidded 
eyes and curling nostrils gave the face an expression 
that matched an Egyptian Pharaoh's in its inscru- 
table pride. 

" Who is that man ? " 
Mr. Wright flecked his horses impatiently. 
" That one man," he answered, " has done more 
than any other to hold back these Comanches. 
The fact that we have never been able to do a thing 
since Dorothy's death, the fact that all Nahwatz' 
faithfulness and the loyalty of Chataneyerque have 
counted for nothing as an influence in the tribe, is 
due to him. Who is he ? He is a drunkard, a 
gambler and a libertine. He is a Sun Worshipper 




In Camp and Tepee 



but he also dabbles in Mescal That is where he 
is going now to judge by his get up. One of their 
Mescal feasts. He is Periconic, the son of Taba- 
nanaca, who was perhaps the greatest chief the 
Conianches have ever seen. His father was a great 
man and as far as we know a good one and a just 
ruler. The son has inherited his pride, but not his 
strength, nor his personal magnetism. Quanah 
Parker now holds Tabananaca's place, but Periconic 
is nevertheless a man to be reckoned with." 

A few days later Mr. TTright came out of his 
tent to find this proud son of the old chieftain 
silently awaiting him, his scarlet blanket held about 
him with one hand. He extended the other in 
dignified greeting. 

" Ahites ! " he said gravely. 

Air. TTright, astonished at such an overture of 
friendliness, asked the man in the sign-language 
what he could do for him. 

Periconic motioned him to be seated and sitting 
opposite lapsed into the long silence that with an 
Indian is a sure prelude to the discussion of a matter 
of importance, then he began in slow, graceful 
signs. 

" For a long time," he said, M I have been watching 
two men, Xahwatz and Chataneyerque.'' He paused 
for the missionary's sign that he understood the 
two names, then he continued. " For a great many 
years these two men have stood alone. Xo Indian 
went into their tepees and sat down with them. 
Xo Indian talked with them. If an Indian met 



Beginnings Among the Comanches 151 

them on the road, he did not see them, but " — and 
Periconic's arm described a wide gesture — " he 
went far around that he might not see them. For 
a long time they were alone. But I look at them 
and their hearts are not on the ground. I look at 
them and their faces are like the sun. 

" I have walked many years in the Indian road, 
but I am not strong like Xahwatz and Chataney- 
erque. I have prayed to the sun. I have prayed to 
Mescal, but my heart is on the ground. I think in 
my heart that the road of Xahwatz and Chataney- 
erque is a good road and a stronger road than mine. 
Xow to-day I come to you and ask you to give me 
that road." 

Sitting in the grass Mr. Wright began to teach 
the man what he could understand. It was the 
beginning of many such talks, for often Mr. Wright 
rode out to the Indian's place to see him. Periconic 
received him with courtesy and heard him with 
interest, but beyond that he made no sign. 

Then one day in May he came riding in to the 
mission to find the missionary. 

" For a long time you have been talking to me," 
he said. " At first your words came to my ears, 
but I would not let them in. Then after a while 
they came in and came down and lay in my heart. 
Then I heard about Jesus. You came many times 
and told me that He died and took my sins away. 
Many times you told me that and your words lay 
in my heart. I have been turning them over and 
over in my heart and now to-day I tell you one 



152 In Camp and Tepee 



thing. Just one thing I can do. I can give myself 
to This Man who died and took my sins away. 
Now to-day I give myself. I want to walk in this 
new road with Nahwatz and Chataneyerque." 

From that day forward Per iconic held to " the 
new road " as he understood it, with faithful per- 
severance. The missionaries soon found he was 
a very different man from Nahwatz. Dorothy's 
foster-father was eager and cordial always. When 
he saw the mission hack winding up the trail to his 
house, he would come down to the gate and hold 
it open, his small eager face and large eyes beam- 
ing in welcome. But Periconic, on a like occasion, 
would immediately retreat to his arbor and seat 
himself on the platform at one end, to receive his 
guests in state. But his grave "Ahites, neah- 
hites" (how are you, my friend) and the joy 
smouldering in the deep-set eyes, bespoke as warm 
a welcome if the missionary would believe it. 

Once during that first summer he rode in to 
the mission to ask if he might eat a little mescal 
when he was sick. He received the negative 
answer quietly and rode away again. It was the 
only sign the missionary had of the struggle it 
must have been to overcome the craving for the 
drug. 

Although he was in many ways the old-time In- 
dian, Periconic was quick to take a suggestion which 
appealed to his sense of justice. One Sunday 
morning Miss Adkisson, standing at the schoolhouse 
door to watch the Indians gather for service, saw 



Beginnings Among the Comanches 153 

Periconic stalking along followed by his pretty 
little lame wife with the heavy baby in its papoose 
cradle on her back, panting a little in her effort to 
keep up with the strides of the big man. The con- 
trast, a common enough one in Indian camps, was 
in this case so striking that the missionary could 
not keep back a remark. 

" My friend," she said, " it is not the white man's 
road for a man to walk with empty hands while his 
wife carries a heavy burden. You are strong and 
big, and your wife is little and weak, yet she car- 
ries that heavy baby. It may be the Indian road, 
but it is not the Jesus road." 

The Comanche listened with some astonishment to 
Tocsi's interpretation of these words, but when the 
child had finished, he smiled at the teacher, and 
taking his little son's cradle from his wife's back, he 
carried it in his arms into the church. Always on 
Sundays after that it was considered one of the 
sights of the Comanche camp to see Periconic, the 
son of the great Tabananaca, carrying his baby to 
church. A tide of shrill comment, and cackling 
derision from the old women followed the big man 
on his way, to which he usually paid not the slight- 
est heed ; but occasionally with the keen wit that 
was the never-ceasing delight of those who knew 
him, he would make some answer that caused shouts 
of laughter. 

■* # * * # •* 

It was late in August of 1903 that the first sep- 
arate camp-meeting for the Comanches was held, 



154 I n Camp and Tepee 



and owing to the pressure of work at the other mis- 
sions, Mr. Wright and Mrs. Page were the only 
workers who could be present. When they reached 
the oak grove in the late afternoon, the great camp 
was already pitched and the Indians swarmed out 
to greet them and to help Mr. Wright struggle with 
the balky canvas of the new big preaching tent. 

Mrs. Page watched the scene with interested 
eyes. Here, as among the Apaches, the pointed 
tepee was a rare sight, and most of the camps were 
made up of the white man's square tents. Here 
and there a fire was already lighted, and an old 
woman crouched beside it. Some young girls had 
made a swing of some tough vines and here they 
were romping and laughing, slender, lithe figures in 
the graceful fringed Comanche shawl that took the 
place of the more clumsy blanket. Many of their 
faces and particularly their large dark eyes had an 
expression of peculiar beauty and she decided that 
the cause must be that Comanche women do not 
follow the fashion of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes 
in pulling out their eyebrows. 

A group of men swept by riding superbly on their 
pinto ponies, straight, tall figures with open, pleas- 
ant faces, long hair wound with brilliant flannel, 
and bright neckerchiefs about their necks, many 
with a white sheet in place of a blanket wound 
around the waist. The knives in their belts pro- 
claimed that they were off to kill the beef, and 
soon they were back with a wagon-load of meat for 
the issue, and the women formed a bright fantas- 



Beginnings Among the Comanches 155 

tically colored circle as they waited, each for her 
family portion. Everywhere was the soft swing- 
ing music of their rhythmical language, the most 
musical of Indian tongues. 

The contrast between these and the northern 
Indians was even more striking when the lanterns 
had been hung here and there in the big preaching 
tent and the call to evening service had gone ring- 
ing through the camp. They came in by twos and 
threes, men, women and children, and before tak- 
ing their places all came forward to shake Mr. 
Wright's hand with the " Ahites " of welcome. 

At last the audience was seated, the men on the 
left, the women and children on the right, and Mr. 
Wright stepped forward to speak, his big inter- 
preter, Howard White Wolf, standing in quiet dig- 
nity beside him. At the close, N ahwatz rose to 
pray, and, standing in their midst with high raised 
hands and upturned face down which the tears were 
running unheeded, he poured out his soul for his 
people ; and one by one they gathered to him 
crouching muffled in their blankets at the feet of 
this man who had been so long alone and despised. 

When the meeting was over and the Field Secre- 
tary was going to her tent, Mr. Wright called to 
her and turning she saw he was following her with 
an Indian who had a baby in his arms. 

" This is Yellow Back," explained Mr. Wright, 
" and his little grandchild here is teething and is 
evidently suffering. Do you know of anything to 
do for it?" 



156 In Camp and Tepee 



Mrs. Page looked up into the Indian's face, but 
the man's eyes were fastened on the baby and he 
turned without a word and led the way to his tent. 
Here with the young mother who proved to be a 
Christian girl who understood English, the worker 
examined her tiny patient, and directed the mother 
in making a simple remedy that might ease its 
pain. 

In the midst of the morning service the next day, 
Yellow Back came striding into the tent with the 
baby wrapped in its little blanket in his arms. 
Howard explained the torrent of Comanche that he 
poured out. 

" He tells me to explain how it is he comes here," 
said the interpreter slowly. " He wants us all to 
pray for that little baby he has brought. He says 
it is the only child they have in their camp, and he 
wants us to ask God to make it well." 

Yellow Back stood all this while, his dark face 
drawn with anguish, holding the sick child out 
towards the workers. At a sign from Mr. Wright 
he sank to his knees, gathering the little bundle 
close with an indescribably pathetic gesture, trying 
to soothe its moaning while the missionary prayed. 
After the service Dr. Baker, and his wife, a trained 
nurse from the Apache Mission, went with the work- 
ers to the old man's camp, but to their dismay the 
old man was unwilling to have the doctor touch the 
child. The missionaries were obliged to leave them 
to their own way. 

In the middle of the afternoon came a group of 



Beginnings Among the Comanches 157 



men with Howard White Wolf at their head to 
hold a council with Mrs. Page. 

" We hear," they said, " that you are one of those 
4 woman-chiefs ' that sit down in the north and plan 
this work here. We want you to tell your people 
that we think these meetings are good. They are 
like our old life that our fathers have told us about. 
And when we come to them our hearts are open, 
and we hear what we do not hear at other times. 
We think it is good that your people should give 
us many of these meetings. We want you to tell 
them that our hearts are good when we live in these 
camps like our fathers lived in. We think these 
meetings are very good." 

When they were assured their message would be 
delivered, they went away content. 

Early the next morning a number of the women 
came and sat down in the grass before the worker's 
tent while she explained to them the work of the 
Mohonk Lodge, and its industry of bead-work, with 
all it had meant to the Cheyenne and Arapahoe 
women, and urged them to push, push and see 
what they could do. Then together they went over 
to the morning meeting. 

The tent was almost empty, but near the front 
they already saw the crouching figure of Yellow 
Back, the tiny blanketed figure of his little grand- 
child lying before him on the ground. The old 
man was staring unseeing out through the trees. 

In the afternoon came Periconic with a question 
to ask of Mr. Wright. 



158 In Camp and Tepee 



"Just one thing I have been holding in my 
heart," he said. " I think and I think of this one 
thing. My father, Tabananaca, where is he ? He 
lived many years, but he never heard of Jesus or 
of God. He died never having heard. Where is 
he? Tell me. Where is he? " 

"Periconic," answered the missionary, looking 
into the eager, questioning eyes, " we never judge 
the dead. You say your father never knew of God, 
that he never prayed to Him. Yet how do you 
know that when he was dying, just before he went 
out into the dark, he did not feel afraid in his weak- 
ness and reach up and cry out to something above 
him — something that he did not know was God — 
something that was stronger than he ? You could 
not hear that cry. You could not see it. It was 
the cry of a soul, not the cry of the lips. But God 
would hear it and would stoop down and put His 
hand under him as he was going out. We never 
judge the dead because we know so little. But 
this one thing we know. That God is far, far 
more just than man. And, Periconic, He knew 
that Tabananaca had never heard of Him." 

The Indian, his face alight with relief, arose and 
with the beautiful gesture language thanked his 
friend. 

The sunrise prayer-meeting was to be the close 
of the first great Comanche camp-meeting. As the 
workers crossed the open space to the preaching 
tent they suddenly heard, breaking the hush of 
early dawn, that terrible sound of heart-broken 



Beginnings Among the Comanches 159 

despair, the Indian death-wail, rising and falling in 
its hopeless lament. 

" It's the baby, Yellow Back's little baby ! " was 
the dismayed cry. " What will he do ? Oh, what 
will he do ? " 

Mr. Wright, speaking out of a hard experience 
with the Indian method of accepting grief, an- 
swered : " Oh, he will turn against us now, without 
a doubt, and half the tribe with him." 

When the meeting was over, there, outside the 
tent, stood Yellow Back, his face distorted with 
grief. The Indians gathered about him as he began 
to speak slowly. 

"My people tell me that the reason my baby 
died was because I have taken this 'new road.' 
But I am not going to throw away Jesus." 

Then Mia-co-be said in Comanche, which Howard 
interpreted, that he thought it was not right that 
this child, for whom they had all been praying, 
should be buried in the Indian way. He thought 
it would be good for all the Christian friends to 
give something so that the child could be " buried 
right" in the Jesus road. He took off his hat 
and started around to gather up the money. Some 
of the women hurried back to their tents to get 
their money, eager to show their sympathy in 
this way. Mia-co-be gathered it up, as much as 
his two hands would hold, and gave it to Yellow 
Back. 

The old man's face was wet with tears, but he 
controlled his trembling lips and smiled as he 



160 In Camp and Tepee 



thanked them. Then he turned abruptly and hur- 
ried away. It was arranged that the baby's burial 
would be that afternoon, and then all went silently 
to the task of breaking camp. 

Howard White Wolf came later in the morning 
to find Mrs. Page, saying that Periconic was very 
anxious to see her, and together they made their 
way to his camp. He motioned the pair to be 
seated, and at once began to talk. 

" My father," he began, " was a great chief. I 
am the son of Tabananaca. All the Indians know 
me, how I was very bad. But now I love God, 
and I love to pray to Him. I do not know much, 
but still I can love God. 

" Now, my friend, I want to send a message to 
your people. I want you to write down what I 
say and read it to them when you go North." So 
he gave his message, and when it had been written 
and translated to him again, he signed it with his 
mark. 

" God made all my brothers and sisters just the 
same. To-day I am saying that. I love all my 
sisters and my brothers the same, the women that 
got the same language as me and all the children 
that God gave them, all the red people that God 
made the same as me, all the white women that 
belong to the church, I love them all ; your chil- 
dren, I love them because God gave them to you. 
I gave my heart to J esus and Our Father God be- 
cause He made me down here on earth, and I want 
all the Christians to help me because I am an In- 



Beginnings Among the Comanches 161 

dian. Alone I do not know anything about God's 
way. 

"Tell them we want a church here on the In- 
dians' land so that we and our children can go in 
and learn about what the Bible tells them. I can- 
not learn to talk like the white man, I cannot learn 
to write, but I want it for the children." 

(Signed) Pericolic. 

( X ) His Mark. 

Early in the afternoon Mr. ^Wright and Mrs. 
Page drove up to the desolate Comanche burying- 
ground on the hill. A number of the Indians had 
already gathered and while they were waiting for 
Yellow Back, Xahwatz led Mrs. Page to Dorothy's 
grave, begging her to write the girl's name on its 
mossy bricks. It was some time before they saw 
Yellow Back's wagon coming up to the cemetery 
gate. The old man got out and taking the baby 
wrapped in its beautiful little red shawl, he in- 
sisted on carrying it for this last time all the way 
around the graveyard before he went in the gate. 
The tall figure started on this last walk holding the 
little one close, stroking its soft hair and touching 
the tiny dead face with gentle fingers, crooning 
soft Comanche as he walked. Then he brought it 
back and laid it tenderly in the little coffin. One 
of the white men standing by was crying like a 
child and as the Indian stood up again he saw it. 
He looked at the man in silence a moment and 
then walking up to him and putting his arm about 



162 In Camp and Tepee 



the shaking shoulders with a few low words, he 
gently wiped the man's eyes with the end of his 
long neckerchief. Then he motioned to Mr. Wright 
to go on. 

" Yellow Back," said the missionary as soon as 
he could command his voice, " this little one was 
like a flower. It was so sweet and we all loved it. 
It was good for us to watch it, and now although 
God took it away, our lives are better for having it 
to love a little while. And this we know. It is 
not gone. We shall find it again, and then you 
will hold it once more in your arms." 

When the tiny grave was covered and the service 
over, Mr. Wright went up to the old man who had 
stood silent and motionless through it all, and put 
his arm about him. Yellow Back started and 
turning, solemnly kissed the missionary on the 
cheek. Then he gathered up his blanket and 
turned away. 



IX 



GLIMPSES 

IN the spring of 1905, as soon as the roads 
became passable after the winter rains, the 
work began on the new Comanche church, 
near the town of Lawton. Periconic and Nahwatz, 
leaving their distant claims, came and camped by 
the enlarging hole and watched operations with a 
proprietary interest. After the foundations were 
laid they summoned the other Christian Indians, 
and declaring that it was not a good road for white 
men to do all the work on " the Indians' church " 
they organized bands of hauling teams and attended 
to all the handling of the lumber. The little 
building being completed, they went back to their 
places to await the coming of the fall which was 
to bring their young missionary, Mr. Brokaw or 
Tatami (Little Brother) as they called him. But in 
September came the news of the young worker's 
death, which the Comanches received with deep 
sorrow and a pitiful dismay. 

In October the Field Secretary visited the 
Comanche Mission and Nahwatz, hearing of her 
coming, drove in to see her. 

" Eckovitch Ta Nami," he said, calling her by 
the name the tribe had given her, "we are very 

163 



164 In Camp and Tepee 



much alone now and our hearts are afraid as we 
look ahead. You were with Tatami when he died, 
and you know how all the Comanches loved him. 
~We think it would be good if you held a meeting 
and told us all about our friend and give us the 
road that he would want us to walk." 

" You call the Indians together and I will talk 
with them," was the answer. 

The day before this meeting was to be held 
Mrs. Page was passing by the agency where a 
crowd of Comanches were waiting for the quarterly 
issue of their annuity-money, when a woman, fol- 
lowed by one of the little girls from the school, 
stopped her. Stammering and twisting with em- 
barrassment the child explained that this was Lucy, 
that she was a Christian, and that she had known 
Tatami and remembered him well, and she wanted 
to come to the meeting to hear about the road he 
wanted his friends to walk. But her husband, 
Chartasay, who was not a Christian, had refused 
to bring her in to the mission. Perhaps if Ecko- 
vitch would speak with him, he might change his 
mind. 

Eckovitch followed the two to a wagon where a 
small pleasant faced man was harnessing up his 
team. 

" Chartasay," said she, as soon as the formal 
hand-shaking was over, " Lucy tells me she wants 
to come to the mission to-morrow, and I have come 
to ask you to bring her and to tell you that I shall 
be looking for you both and I shall be very much 



Glimpses 165 

disappointed if you are not there. Will you prom- 
ise to come ? " The man hesitated, so the speaker 
continued, " Lucy cannot walk in this new road 
that she has taken alone. It is a hard road and 
she often needs help from the other Christians and 
from the white people at the mission. She tells 
me you are not walking this road with her, but 
you ought not to make it any harder for her. She 
has promised to walk in the Jesus road, but she 
cannot do it, unless you will take her to the mission 
when she wants to go." 

"It is a very bad thing not to keep a promise," 
said the Indian slowly. 

" Then you will help her. You will not make 
it harder for her to travel a hard road. You will 
come to the mission to-morrow ? " 

" I will come." 

In the spring of 1906 Mr. Legters, who had been 
taking Mr. Brokaw's place at Colony, came down 
to take up his work among the Comanches. For a 
few months while his parsonage was being built, 
the new missionary lived at the Apache Mission 
and travelled back and forth to the services in the 
new church. When Mr. Legters moved into his 
new house he brought as his wife the Miss Adkis- 
son who had been for some years in charge of the 
Apache Mission. 

One day news reached the mission that Nahwatz 
was sick, that he had been sick for several days, and 
Mr. Legters, not even waiting to find an interpreter, 
harnessed up the team and drove out to the old 



166 In Camp and Tepee 



man's place. He found the Indian lying on a high 
rack under a shade beside the house, where the 
sweet open air could blow over him. He sat up 
delighted to see the missionary. 

" Yes," he gestured, smiling in answer to the anx- 
ious questions, " for three days I have been a heap 
sick, but now it is cut off and I am coming up 
again." 

The missionary said he was glad to hear that his 
friend was better, and in response to the eager ges- 
ture sat down to talk. 

" There is one thing," began Nahwatz, " that my 
heart is hungry to tell you. One night while I was 
sick I was lying awake. I could not sleep so I lay 
looking, looking into the dark. And suddenly I 
saw the devil standing before me. And the devil 
he said to me, ( Ur-ruh,' 1 and he said to me : 1 You 
— you are just the same as a prisoner, and you are 
walking in a hard road. Your road is a narrow 
road and a bad road. And you — you are walking 
alone. Maybe so one, two, three Indians are walk- 
ing in your road, but you are just the same as pris- 
oners. You want to gamble — no, you can't do it. 
You want to drink the crazy-water — no, you can't 
do it. You want to dance. Xo — you can't do it. 
You want to eat mescal. Xo — you can't do it. 
You are just the same as a slave. But my road is 
a good road, a wide road, and an easy road. If you 
want to gamble in my road — all right, I let you. 

1 A discourteous greeting about corresponding to 11 Hello, you 
there ! " 



Glimpses 



167 



If you want to dance — all right, I let you. If you 
want to drink the crazy-water or eat mescal — I let 
you. And many people are walking along my road 
and their hearts are light. But you — you are just 
the same as a prisoner/ 

" The devil, he told me that, and I did not know 
what to say. I sat with my hand over my face, 
and my heart was on the ground. 

" Then Jesus, He came and stood where the devil 
had been standing, and He said to me: 'Ahites, 
neah-hites,' 1 and Jesus, He said to me : 'My friend, 
the devil told you straight. My road is a hard road 
and a narrow road, and it is up-hill all the way. 
You cannot do what you want in my road, and 
very few people, maybe one, two, three, are walking 
in it. And the devil's road is a good road and a 
wide road and an easy road and a great many 
people are walking in it. The devil — he told you 
straight. But my friend, come with me.' And 
Jesus He took me out and He showed me two 
roads. First He took me along the devil's road. It 
was wide and smooth, and just a heap of Indians 
were walking along that road. They were dancing 
and gambling and drinking the 6 crazy- water,' and 
their hearts were light. But as we walked along 
the road, by and by it grew narrow and rough, and 
it began to go down-hill. And by and by the 
mountains came close and pressed on the road, and 
at last it came to an end and a great way below I 
saw fire. And the people saw the fire and they 

1 How are you, my friend ? 



1 68 In Camp and Tepee 



were afraid and they tried to turn and go back, 
but the devil caught them, he pushed them along 
— they could not stop, they could not turn or go 
back. 

" Then Jesus He said to me : 1 Come, my friend. 5 
And He took me back to His road. And it was 
narrow and rough and hard. It went up-hill all 
the way and only a few were walking in it. But 
we walked along the road and by and by it grew 
smooth and wider, and at last it led up to a great 
light like the sun. And God was there." 

****** 

Just before the camp-meeting in 1907 Mrs. Page 
was again on the field. In the two years that had 
passed she had grown very fond of the Comanche 
woman Lucy, and had come to feel that Chartasay 
was her friend. Her first errand was to go down 
into the camp that was already gathering and hunt 
up her friends. She had some difficulty in finding 
Chartasay 's tepee, as there were many to greet and 
talk with, but at last she saw the little man and his 
wife hovering anxious in the distance. 

She found the camp as neat and clean as any one 
could wish, and evidently swept and garnished in 
her honor. The old mother was busy with prepara- 
tion for supper and Eckovitch sat down under the 
canvas fly before the tent door between her two 
friends, and. through the help of the little inter- 
preter Lucy had secured, was soon in the midst of 
a talk over the doings of the past winter. When 
the old woman had set out the meal and the 



Glimpses 



169 



others had more or less ceremoniously taken their 
seats, Chartasay spoke. 

"Eckovitch," he said, "I know that God He 
gives us everything, and I cannot eat before we talk 
to God. I think it is good if you women talk to 
Him now." 

So first the white woman prayed, and then Lucy, 
and last of all was heard the trembling voice of the 
old mother. 

Chartasay said, " Good," and reaching for the lard 
put a liberal helping on his piece of bread, and then 
handed the pail to Eckovitch. With all the will in 
the world the missionary could not force herself to 
follow his example, and she passed it on to Lucy. 
The old woman had meanwhile filled the cups at 
the fragrant coffee-pail, and the missionary turned 
gratefully to the one that was set before her. As 
she took up the condensed milk and started to pour 
it in her coffee, a look of horror on her hostess's 
face caught her eye. Hastily setting the can down 
she asked for information. 

" In the white man's road," she explained with 
quick signs, " this was put in the coffee. Was that 
the Indian way ? " 

A gasp went round the little circle. 

" Oh, no," cried Chartasay. " That was sugar, and 
it was kept till last and then one put a little of 
it on bread, and ate it slowly, for it was a heap 
good." 

When the meal was ended and the food cleared 
away, the moon had risen and quiet was descending 



170 



In Camp and Tepee 



011 the camp. The two women, when they had 
finished the last duties, went into the open tent and 
rolling up in their blankets went promptly and 
audibly to sleep. Then Chartasay arose and lead- 
ing the way to a corner of the shade where the 
moonlight lay in a brilliant pool, sat down to have 
the real talk of the evening. 

" Eckovitch," he asked, " how many colds 
(winters) have come and gone since Jesus died ? " 

" A great many." 

" Was He alive when I was a little boy ? " 

" No, Chartasay, He died a long long while before 
your father's father was born." 

The worker tried to figure out the number of 
years in the sign-language, and the wide eyes of 
the Indian showed that he was realizing a length 
of time such as he had never dreamed of before. 
At last he spoke : 

" How do we know that what you tell us is 
straight ? How do we know that the Book is true ? 
No man can remember." 

" No, Chartasay, no man can remember, but 
Jesus when He was here took friends, and He told 
them what He wants us to know. Then they told 
their friends and they told others, till many many 
years ago it came to my fathers and now I tell 
you." 

" Tes, that was good." 

" Chartasay, what do you think of this Jesus 
road ? " 

" I think it is good." 



Glimpses 



171 



" Are you going to take it ? " 
" Yes, in a little while." 
"Not now?" 
"No, not yet." 

"Chartasay, you make me think of a story. 
There was a man who had a bright stone. And he 
thought it was a heap good. He used to ride on 
those fast wagons (trains) and he would stand on 
the end of the fast wagon where the sun was bright 
and toss up his stone and catch it. One day his 
friend said, 6 Put that in your pocket ; you will lose 
it, 5 and the man answered, ' In a little while.' And 
then he tossed it up but he did not catch it, and it 
fell and he lost it. My friend, you are just the 
same as that man, and some day your heart will 
slip through your fingers and be lost." 

The Indian did not answer for some moments, 
then as his friend rose to go, he looked up. 

" Eckovitch, your words are in my heart. I 
shall hold them and think of them." 

During the winter she received a dictated letter 
from Lucy saying that Chartasay had decided to 
take his stand before his people at the big Indian 
gathering to be held in the fall. When the camp- 
meeting began in September, service followed service 
and still Chartasay, who was present on the grounds, 
did not attend. On the afternoon of the last day, 
word came that he wanted to see Eckovitch. 

She found him alone in his shade, for the audience 
was already gathering for the evening meeting. 
He went at once to the matter in hand. 



172 



In Camp and Tepee 



" I told you I would take this new road," he said, 
" but when I think, my heart is afraid. It is a 
hard road and I cannot read the Book. I do not 
know very much, and by and by I shall fall. Then 
God will be angry and throw me away. I know I 
cannot walk this road strong all the time and so I 
am afraid." 

His friend considered a moment, then — 

"Chartasay, I need an interpreter. The hand 
talk is not good for what I would say." 

The Indian arose where he was, and looked about 
him. Then he called, and a young man gambling 
with a group about a near-by fire got up and came 
sullenly over. The moment's respite gave Eckovitch 
time to gather her thoughts to try to make clear 
that idea for which no Indian language has a word, 
" forgiveness." 

" There is a verse," she began, " in the Book that 
seems as if it were written for you, my friend. It 
says : ' Though I fall I shall not be utterly cast 
down, for the Lord will hold me.' And now, 
Chartasay, I want to tell you what that means. 
You have seen a father walking across the camp 
with his little boy. The little boy is just learning 
to walk, and he is very proud. He will not let his 
father help him, for he wants to walk alone. But 
by and by he falls and he hurts himself badly. 
Then he is willing to let his father help him and 
now the two go on together. The little boy 
stumbles just as he did before, but now his father 
has his hand and although the child loses his foot- 



Glimpses 



' 73 



ing sometimes, he does not fall down to the ground. 
As often as the child stumbles the father sets him 
up and helps him on. He never gets angry, he 
never grows impatient, because he loves the little 
boy, and he wants him to learn to walk. So by 
and by the child gets stronger and he stumbles less 
till after a while he can walk strong." 

There was no need to point the moral ; the Indian 
understood and, gathering up his blanket, set out 
for the preaching-tent. 

One hot afternoon the Field Secretary was walk- 
ing through the camp after her hours of weary 
work, when she heard her name called : 

"Eckovitch, Eckovitch Ta Xami." 

Old Dessa-chah-toway was sitting under her arbor 
and beckoning. The tired worker drew near. 

" Eckovitch, I see that you are a heap tired," the 
old woman announced in the sign-language. " All 
day you have been walking, walking, and looking, 
looking for your Indian friends. The sun is a heap 
strong and now you — you are tired. See my dress 
— it is very clean and good," and she smoothed her 
fat knees. " I think it would be good now if you 
lay down here right alongside of me, and put your 
head in my lap and went to sleep. Then when you 
have slept a little while you will come up and you 
can go back to your tent." 

The cool shade looked very inviting and the 
worker sat down, and then to Dessa-chah-toway's 
delight, stretched out and rested her head on the 
old woman's ample lap. The Comanche summoned 



174 I n Camp and Tepee 



her husband Naa'-sick-way from the tent to find 
her the end of a fresh green branch, and taking it 
as a fan she ordered the old man to sit outside and 
keep it quiet that her friend might sleep. The 
shuffle of the old man's steps died away and the 
only sound was the gentle rustling of the waving 
branch, and soon even that faded and died as the 
visitor sank into a doze. 

It was over an hour later when she started up 
conscience-stricken that she had kept the old woman 
so long at her self-imposed task, but Dessa-chah-toway 
shook her head in smiling denial of any fatigue. 

" My heart is light," she said, " when I can do 
something for our sister." 

It was about this time that Mr. Wright decided 
he must have an interview with the chief of the 
Comanche nation, Quanah Parker, the influence of 
whose attitude, baffling and non-committal though 
that was, often hampered him. X ot wishing to go 
alone, he asked Periconic and Xahwatz to accom- 
pany him. One morning he set out for the long 
drive to the chief's home, planning to pick up a 
few more Indians on the way. Not far from 
Lawton he came to the place of a Comanche who 
could speak English and Mr. Wright reined in his 
horses. In answer to his shout, the Indian came 
down to the fence. 

" I am on my way down to Parker's. Can you 
come with me ? n 

A strange look crossed the Indian's face. He 
hesitated some moments before he spoke. 



Glimpses 



175 



" Did Quanah Parker send for you to come ? " 
" No, but " 

" Then I won't go. You must get some one 
else." Without another word the Indian turned 
about and walked away. The next man the 
missionary approached was too busy. He must 
round up his cattle. A third hesitated and finally 
refused in a way that roused the missionary's curi- 
osity, and he asked the reason why so many were 
unwilling to join his party. The Indian did not 
answer at once, but at last he said : 

" Just a little while ago White Tail went down 
to see Quanah and he found him sitting with his 
hands clasped behind his head. He is very bad 
when he sits that way. I will not go near him 
when he is bad like that." 

Periconic and Nahwatz were not disturbed, how- 
ever, and together with them and their families 
Mr. Wright continued the journey. 

The sun was hot and the air close, which neces- 
sitated a long midday halt, so that it was late in the 
afternoon when the little party rounded a turn in 
the valley they were following and came in sight 
of Quanah's house, which the Indians said had been 
built for him by some ranchmen in exchange for 
Texas land. The little valley narrowed and rose, 
a smooth green slope, to where the rugged outline 
of the Witchitas shut it in as with a rocky wall. 
Just where the prairie-grass ended and the timber 
began, backed against the mountain and facing 
down the valley and out to the plains, stood the 



176 In Camp and Tepee 



long rambling two-story house. Its roof was dark 
red and had great white stars painted on it. A 
palisade of wire fencing, thirty feet high, sur- 
rounded the house, and a considerable amount of 
ground. A winding trail led up the slope from the 
gate. Building and enclosure alike were silent, 
empty, and evidently deserted. 

The missionary drove up to the gate and finding 
it locked, was obliged to give up all hope of re- 
plenishing his water-kegs at the chief's spring. He 
turned off the road to camp for the night. While 
preparations for supper were under way, the mis- 
sionary suddenly raised his head, listening intently. 
Up the valley through the still, breathless air, came 
the low sound of distant hoof-beats, and, even as 
he listened, around the turn in the valley swept a 
band of Indians on horseback. They were evi- 
dently returning from some dance or feast, for they 
were in full Indian dress. On and on they rode, 
lithe, graceful figures on their spotted ponies, feath- 
ers and blankets fluttering about them, until finally 
they came to a stop before the gate and then 
parted, while through their midst came a ram- 
shackle old surrey drawn by two ridiculous mis- 
mated Indian ponies. On the front seat was a man 
who needed no finery of ceremonial dress to mark 
him the master of them all. The ugly lines of his 
citizen's dress could not hide the massive powerful 
figure any more than the careless hands that held 
the sagging reins could draw the gaze from the 
fiercely proud face in its icy calm or from the large 



Glimpses 



177 



strange eyes smouldering under their drooping lids. 
He paid no more heed to the missionary's outfit 
than if it had not existed. Unfastening his gate 
he led his followers inside and drove up the wind- 
ing trail to the house. 

After supper was over a man came down from 
Quanah's to know what Mr. Wright might want. 

" I want to speak with the chief." 

The Indian departed and the brief twilight had 
deepened into dark before he returned to say the 
chief would see the party the next afternoon. Mr. 
Wright watched the messenger go back up the 
winding trail. The great enclosure was filled now 
with tents and tiny flickering fires. Another large 
camp-fire had been built before the chief's house 
and it threw grotesque dancing shadows along the 
deep veranda and brought into ghostly prominence 
the white stars on its roof. 

The next afternoon at the appointed time two 
men came down to escort the party, and silently 
they led the missionary and his friends up to the 
wide veranda where Quanah was sitting with a 
number of his chiefs. 

After the usual ceremonious silence Quanah 
asked what the missionary wanted to say. Mr. 
Wright answered : 

" For many years we have been working among 
your people and my heart is anxious that you 
should stand with us. Will you tell me what you 
think of our work, and whether you are with us 
or against us ? 99 



178 In Camp and Tepee 



Quanah took some time for thought before he 
deigned to reply. 

" I have told in council what I think of this 
way," he answered, speaking slowly in English. 
" Your friends there," and he nodded to Periconic 
and Nahwatz, " know what I said. I will tell you. 
Some day you, I, all white people and Indians will 
be dead. God sits in His lodge to judge." He 
paused, evidently realizing the inadequacy of his 
English. Then in the effort to make his idea 
graphic, he quickly threw it into the dramatic 
form. "See, I am God. Along comes a man. 
God say, ' Who are you ? ' Man say, 4 1 am white 
man.' God say, ' You Christian ? 9 Man say, ' Yes.' 
God say, 4 Where you ticket ? ' Man give it to 
God. God read. God say, ' You go here,' " and 
he gestured to the right. "Along come another 
man. God say, 4 Who are you ? ' Man say, ' I am 
white man.' God say, ' You Christian ? ' Man say, 
' No.' God say, ' Where you passport ? ' Man 
give it to God. God read. God say, ' You go 
here.'" And he gestured to the left. "Along 
come another man. God say, ' Who are you ? ' 
Man say, ' I am Indian.' God say, ' What you 
name?' Man say, ' Quanah Parker.' God say, 
' You Christian ? ' Quanah say, ' No.' 6 Where you 
ticket ? ' 'I ain't got any.' ' Where you pass- 
port ? ' ' I ain't got any.' 6 Well, what you got to 
say for yourself ? ' Then I say, 6 Indian living in 
darkness. No one showed us the way. I never 
used to hear about you till I was old.' " 



Glimpses 



179 



The chief rose, gathering his blanket about him, 
and towered above the circle. 

" A long time ago you heard of this Jesus. And 
now — to-day " — his voice was full of scorn — 
" you come to me. You ask me what do I think 
of this road. It is a good road. For the children 
it is a good road, but for me — you are too late. 
Why didn't you come before ? Were you too busy 
to come ? — Well — were you too busy to send ? 
You come now — you are too late. While you have 
been waiting many of us have died and the rest of 
us have turned to stone." 

He stood a moment dominating them, his strange 
compelling eyes blazing, then he turned and went 
into the house. 



X 



A WINNEBAGO BOY 




N the early summer of 1907 there came to the 
Comanche ^Reservation a Winnebago boy, seek- 
ing help— a boy with an unusual history. 



In the late nineties there was a Presbyterian 
missionary on the Winnebago Keservation in east- 
ern .Nebraska, William T. Findley by name. He 
had been working for years among that tribe which 
the Government reckoned as one of the most de- 
graded. Yet, in spite of these years of faithful 
effort, crowned though they were by no small 
measure of success among the white people, there 
was little advancement that he could see along 
Indian lines, and the people that he had so long 
and patiently sought to win were still hostile or 
indifferent to his message. One evening as he 
faced the situation the missionary's mind turned to 
a blind Indian who used to come often to the little 
church led by a bright-faced little boy. Disheart- 
ening as the outlook was, here was one little ray of 
hope — and he thought again of the lad's face, and 
of a talk he had recently had with Mrs. Findley. 
She had told him of that Sunday when the lesson 
on Christ before Pilate had brought the searching 
question, " But what will you do with this Jesus ? " 

180 



A Winnebago Boy i8i 

to her class of small boys, and of the deep interest 
shown by this little Indian boy. He had deter- 
mined at the time to have a long talk with the 
boy. Now he would wait no longer but would go 
that night, late though it was. It was midnight 
when he arrived at the school and asked for per- 
mission to speak with Henry Cloud. 

"The boys are all in bed, Mr. Findley. Can't 
you wait till to-morrow ? " 

" No. Please call him. I cannot wait. I must 
see him now." 

And in a few minutes the drowsy twelve-year- 
old was standing before him. Without a word the 
missionary turned and led him out away from the 
buildings under the quiet stars. He sat down in 
the grass, and drawing the child down beside him, 
he told him that he wanted him to promise to be a 
Christian. Then slowly and with infinite patience 
the missionary went through the marvellous story. 
The little fellow was very tired, but he knew from 
the untimely call that something of importance was 
pending, and therefore tried hard to listen and 
understand. This was what he heard. 

There was a man who had lived far over the sea. 
He was poor, so poor He was born in a stable, yet 
great men, chiefs in their own country, came many 
miles to see Him and to bring Him gifts. And as 
He grew up He became a good man, the best man 
there ever was. He went about laying His hands 
on the sick that they might get well. He even 
spoke to the dead, and they walked and talked 



182 In Camp and Tepee 



again. He knew and loved children and boys, and 
they were always following Him. His heart was 
brave, for He could defy the men who held Him 
in their power, and He went to an awful death 
with no word of complaint, no cry of pain on His 
lips. 

Then came a good deal that the child could not 
follow very well, but he gathered that the man 
had become a great Spirit with mighty power, 
and that He had sent Mr. Findley to ask him — 
Henry Cloud, the Indian boy — to be His friend. 
That was something he could understand. Was it 
not the teaching of the medicine-men that all his 
boyhood should be one effort to find the Spirit 
who was to be his friend and special guardian, and 
whose character would mould all his after life? 
Did not every legend of the old times that his 
grandmother told teach the meaning of friendship 
between men? Friends were of one blood, and 
their union could be severed only by death. He 
must fight for his friend and follow his fortunes, 
good or bad, all the days of his life. He must 
stand between his friend and all evil that would 
attack him unawares. So his grandmother had 
always said. 

Henry Cloud knew what it meant and that this 
would be the greatest decision of his life. But this 
Jesus was a great Spirit as well as a man, and He 
was asking the Indian boy to be His friend. It 
would make that great Spirit's lonely heart happy 
if the boy should promise to fight for Him all the 



A Winnebago Boy 183 



days of his life. This was a great Spirit, and who 
was the boy to refuse ? With shining eyes he gave 
his word. For hours they talked together, Mr. 
Findley and the lad, and when they walked back 
to the dormitory the missionary gave Henry the 
little black Testament he was to cherish. 

None knew better than Henry Cloud the power 
of the Medicine Lodge, the organized religion of 
the Winnebagoes, for his mother was a " medicine- 
woman" and stood high in their councils. He 
could not remember when he had not listened, 
wide-eyed, to stories of strange rites and dark prac- 
tices, or heard, shuddering, of the terrible power of 
their " medicine bundles," for these they claimed 
could take life or render a person useless for the 
rest of his days with paralysis. He knew of their 
threats of death to any member who turned away 
from the "religion of the fathers." The boy's 
loneliness was great, but he gained comfort from 
the quiet times spent alone in the dormitory, when 
the reading of his little Testament brought his 
Friend very close. 

" Oh," he cried once, " Jesus was lonely and He 
hadn't any friends, and I am so lonely and I 
haven't any friends. Why couldn't we have lived 
together ! " 

Perhaps some rumor had reached the ears of his 
old grandmother, for one day she drew him aside, 
telling him she had something of importance to tell 
him. 

" My grandson," the old woman began, " I hear 



184 In Camp and Tepee 



you are thinking of becoming a ' preaching-listener.' 1 
You are to be a man and you must make your own 
road, but before you decide I want to tell you 
something that is handed down from the fathers, 
and it is true. 

" Long long years ago, the wearers of the broad- 
cloth 2 came among the Crows and one Crow Indian 
became a preaching-listener, and when he came to die 
they did not know what to do with him. They did 
not think they ought to bury him in the Indian way, 
for in his life he had not walked with them, but 
they did not know what was the right way to bury 
a preaching-listener. So they did not know what 
to do. 

" They were just starting off on a hunting-trip, so 
they decided to dress him as nearly as they could 
like the wearers of the broadcloth and to put him 
up on a high booth of boughs away from the wolves 
while they went up-stream to hunt. When they 
came back perhaps they might know what to do 
with him. So they dressed him in a long straight 
black coat that they made of skins and they put 
something white about his neck. Then they laid 
him on the booth and went away. 

" Now listen, my grandson ; for four days the soul 
of that preaching-listener stayed near its body, and 
on the fourth day it started on its journey to the 
spirit-land. He travelled many days till it came to 
a place where two roads met, and the soul took the 
right-hand road. After a long while it saw a white 

1 A Christian. 3 Probably Jesuit missionaries. 



A Winnebago Boy 1 85 

city up 011 a hill and many people were there and 
they were singing. And the soul was glad, for the 
journey had been long. So it hurried towards the 
white city. As it drew nearer it could hear the 
people singing to welcome another soul, but, my 
grandson, when that of the preaching-listener 
approached and they saw it was an Indian, one of 
those that were there waved to it and called : 

" ' Go back. Go back. You are an Indian. You 
have taken the wrong road. Go back and take the 
left-hand trail. 5 

" So the soul turned back and took the left-hand 
road. And after a long time it began to hear the 
beating of the tom-toms and the singing of the 
women and by and by it saw a beautiful Indian 
village. And as it drew near it saw men standing 
at the doors of the tepees and they were friends 
that it had known. The soul was very glad, for 
after all this was the life it knew, and it started to 
run towards the village. Then one of those that 
were standing at the tepee-doors, seeing the black 
clothes, waved to it, and called : 

" ' Go back. Go back, white man, you cannot 
come in here. Go back and take the right-hand 
road.' 

"So the soul turned and went back. When it 
came to the place where the two roads met, it stood 
there for a long time, then it turned and took the 
road back to its body. 

" After many days the hunting-party came back 
and took down the body of the preaching-listener. 



186 In Camp and Tepee 



And they found that it was a little warm as if there 
were a little life left in it. So they gave it to an 
old woman who nursed it and by and by the preach- 
ing-listener came back to life, and when he was 
able to sit up he opened his mouth and told them 
this story. It has come down from the fathers and 
it is true. 

" And now, my grandson, I know that you are to 
be a man, and you will make your own way, but I 
want you to know if you take this new road that 
you will be a homeless wanderer in the world to 
come." 

It speaks much for the temper of the boy's resolve 
that in spite of it all he held to his new faith. And 
out of that baptism of loneliness and fear he 
brought the determination to speak. His constant 
companion was a boy a few years older than he, 
and to this boy, Adam Fisher, he began to talk, tell- 
ing him all he knew and firing the older boy to 
join him in allegiance to their strange Friend. 

Among the Winnebagoes there is a belief that all 
the spirits and supernatural beings of the earth and 
the underworld are subject to one great Spirit ; 
and it is customary when two men take a vow to 
draw marks on the ground, thus calling the Earth 
Spirit to witness the pledge. If the vow is broken 
the first moment the apostate's foot shall touch the 
ground his partner of the oath will know, though 
separated by leagues and leagues of land and water, 
since the same great Earth supports us all. 

When the two young Indians registered their 



A Winnebago Boy 187 



oath of Friendship to their Leader, they chose this, 
the most impressive ceremony they knew, and each 
stooped over and silently drew his mark to call the 
Indian Earth Spirit in solemn witness to his fealty 
to the Christian God. And for Adam it was a 
step of no mean significance, for his people belonged 
to the Medicine Lodge, and he would be expected 
to join, should some relative die and he be next in 
line. 

One afternoon some weeks after this the two 
boys were walking along one of the dusty roads 
leading from the government school, having started 
out to tell some of the older Indians of this new 
way. Suddenly Adam, who was ahead, looked 
back. 

" Henry, you have to do the talking." 
" Oh, no. You are older. You must talk." 
" No. You knew about it all before I did ; you 
must do the talking. "What are you going to say ? " 
u I don't know." 

Both boys stopped, and there was a long silence. 
Then Henry slowly turned. " I guess, Adam, we 
will have to know more about Jesus and the Book 
of God before we can go to these medicine-men 
with the new way." 

Through the influence of Mr. Findley it had been 
arranged that a group of Winnebago boys were to 
go to a Christian school and it was not long after 
this that Henry and seven others were sent to the 
Santee Congregational school. Perhaps it was the 
fact that they were so far from home, but whatever 



188 In Camp and Tepee 



the cause, six of the boys slipped out one nigh: and 
ran away and only Henry and one other boy were 
left. Then one night Henry's companion came to 
him to sav that he too was going and would Henry 
go with him. The boy sat silent turning it over, 
and when he spoke it was with the air of finality. 

"No/ 3 he said. M I will not go with you, because 
I have not learned all I came here to learn ; but I 
will walk with you a little way/' 

As he walked along beside his friend in the dark 
of that night Henry Cloud faced the blank empti- 
ness that would be waiting for him when he turned 
back alone, and his courage almost failed. Xot 
until after years did his companion confess how 
near he came to turning back with him that night. 
" If you had asked me once more to stay I would 
have done so." But Henry did not dream of the 
unspoken longing and at the crossroads they shook 
hands, and with a sinking heart he trudged back to 
the school. 

TVTiile at Santee the boy was sent one day to the 
room of the matron of his dormitory, and his atten- 
tion was drawn to a small book in her little library, 
He picked it up, and when the matron came 
into the room, the Indian boy made no move. 
He was buried in the book, Smiles's " Self-help." 
Seeing his interest the matron offered to lend it to 
him, and the boy trudged off happy with the book 
under his arm. It was the beginning: of a new 
idea and with characteristic thoroughness he 
tested all his life by it, and decided that the rest of 



A Winnebago Boy 



his education he would get by his own efforts with- 
out the help of the government. He was sixteen 
when he had earned enough to go to Mount Hermon 
School, of which he had heard at Santee, and he 
started East alone. When Henry reached North- 
field in September of 1902, and, scrambling out of 
the car, joined the laughing, jostling crowd of boys 
starting on the mile walk through the pine woods, 
he felt more utterly alone than ever in his life 
before. It was a relief when, on reaching Crossley 
Hall, he found in the pile of baggage that had just 
been unloaded his own little round-topped trunk. 
Dragging it out he sat down on it, as if thus he 
might feel a little nearer to the familiar past. It 
seemed to him as if every other boy there knew 
some one, as if he was the only stranger, and he 
watched them enviously. At last some one saw 
him, and directed him to the school, where he 
plunged into the bewildering process of registration. 

The money he had brought with him from the 
West lasted him not quite a year, and then he was 
obliged to take some time to earn enough to finish. 
He had planned to go to Dartmouth College 
because, owing to the fact that an Indian gave the 
land on which the college stands, special arrange- 
ments are made for Indian boys, but a joke turned 
his course. One of the fellows laughingly chal- 
lenged him to take some competitive examination 
with him, and entering into the fun Henry said, 
"The Tale Prelims are here now. Come on in 
and let's see what we can do anyway." 



190 In Camp and Tepee 



The white boy failed in all but one, while the 
Indian passed eight. Since he had taken the ex- 
aminations, he saw no reason why he should not 
go to Yale, and accordingly matriculated at N ew 
Haven in the fall of 1906. 

****** 

Meanwhile Adam Fisher had gone to Carlisle 
and there, like many another before and after him, 
he lost his first firm grip on the new faith. After 
a year or two he had come down with consumption 
and had been finally sent home to Winnebago to 
die, a discouraged and embittered boy. 

One day among the letters on his desk Dr. Eoe 
found one from an influential lady in Philadelphia. 
She had taken the liberty of writing, she said, 
because of the hope that had been given her at 
Lake Mohonk by hearing of the Lodge at Colony. 
She had a young friend, a Winnebago student at 
Carlisle, in whom she was much interested. He 
had been sent home to his reservation from school 
in an advanced stage of consumption of the throat, 
and for months she had been striving in vain to get 
him into some institution or sanitarium where he 
might have proper care and the opportunity to lay 
hold on his slender chance of recovery. He was a 
boy of such promise, she pleaded ; could they not 
take him in and give him a hope for life ? 

The missionaries talked it over. The first im- 
pulse was to say, " Send him and we will manage 
somehow," but there were attendant circumstances 
which had to be considered. There were already 



A Winnebago Boy 191 



two sicl£ girls in the Lodge. To add another 
burden to little Miss Mary's already weighted 
shoulders and that a boy of whose actual physical 
condition or of whose moral character they knew 
practically nothing, seemed scarcely right. At last 
Dr. Eoe said, " Write her and explain the situation 
and tell her what an intimate life those at the 
Mohonk Lodge must live. Ask her to speak frankly 
of his moral standard, and if the report is satis- 
factory, then we can tell her we will take him." 

The letter was accordingly written, but the ques- 
tions were never answered, for Adam Fisher, having 
heard of the possibility, Indian-like, had not waited 
for anything more definite, but, buoyed up by the 
hope of recovery, was already on his way. The 
first inkling the missionaries had as to the situation 
was a message from Weatherford that a sick 
Indian was in the station asking for Dr. Roe. 

There was nothing to do but to send up for him 
and since the Lodge was full, they made a place 
for him in a tent outside the building. For the 
first few weeks it seemed as if the boy might 
recover in the high clear air of those Southwestern 
plains. Then the transient effect of change wore 
off and he went rapidly down, but in the brief 
respite he had won back through the gloom of 
discouragement to the enthusiasm of faith that he 
thought he had lost. 

One day Dr. Eoe called the young Winnebago 
into his study. " Adam, we feel we ought to tell 
you that you cannot get well," he began, speaking 



192 In Camp and Tepee 



tenderly. " And now we want you to do whatever 
you wish. If you want to stay with us we will be 
glad to have you here, and if you would like to send 
for any of your people, we will put up tents and try 
to make them comfortable. Or if you feel as if 
you must go home, we will see that you get there 
safely. Now, Adam, which shall it be ? " 

The young man rose and walked to the window 
that faced the north and stood a long time looking 
out. When he spoke it was without turning 
around. 

" When I was a little boy, Dr. Koe," he said, " I 
took a vow to bring the ' New Road ' to my people. 
I cannot die without speaking. I want to go back 
to them." 

Perhaps if the missionary had known of the con- 
ditions among the Winnebagoes, he might have 
tried to protect the boy, but, as it was, one of the 
workers went with him to where he was put on a 
through train, and the Presbyterian missionary was 
notified of his coming. It was not till years later 
that they heard the end of his story. 

He settled his things in a little log cabin near the 
mission grounds, and here his relatives, staunch 
Medicine Lodge supporters, came to welcome him 
to his home again. One evening when they were 
all gathered in the cabin's one small room, and the 
talk had been turning on the weeks at Colony in 
the " Indian House," Adam saw his chance and be- 
gan to speak, his thin face eager and alight. He 
told them all from the time when two boys called 



A Winnebago Boy 193 



the Earth to witness their vows to the moment when 
he ieft Colony to bring them these words, and he 
strove to make the " New Koad " plain and straight 
before them. 

A dismayed silence stretched long after his last 
words, and he looked about the ring of faces with 
a sinking heart. He could read bitter disappoint- 
ment in a few, sorrow on more, one was marked 
with fear, but conviction he could find in none. 
And he knew he had failed even before they began 
to speak. Then one by one they talked with him, 
pleading, striving to move him. These words he 
spoke were foolishness, they said. All this was 
white man's talk, and well enough for white men, 
but Indians had their own road which they had 
walked in from the beginning. Would he turn 
from the traditions of his fathers and their fathers 
before them ? This was the only road that would 
lead him safely to the Land of Souls. His days 
might not be long now. Was he willing to leave 
them forever ? 

" No ! No ! " he cried and flung out his hands in 
entreaty. " Not if you will walk this New Eoad 
with me. I have tried it, and I know this is the 
true road, and this alone." 

Then they changed the method of their attack. 
Who was he, a mere boy, to talk of knowing this 
road or that ? One old man said he had followed 
the Medicine Lodge Road all through a long life, 
and he could say it was good. It gave him power 
when he was young, and by that power he was 



194 I n Camp and Tepee 



now old, as they could see. What more could one 

ask ? 

" But there is so much more," argued Adam, but 
they cut him short. 

Had he thought of the medicine-men ? Indeed 
he had, often and often. They would be sure to 
hear of this unless he were wise and held his tongue. 
Had he thought of that when he took that vow ? 

He nodded his head. 

" I must speak," he answered slowly. " I must 
speak though I die for it." 

A few days later he was standing at the door of 
his cabin when a medicine-man passed along the 
road, and as Adam watched him the haunting fear 
and belief in the power of the medicine-men made 
his heart beat fast. What if they should approach 
him in the form of some night animal and attack 
him ! 

That evening he went to the mission and bor- 
rowed a gun, and not long after the missionary 
went down to the cabin to see if there was any- 
thing he could do. He found the boy dead, and as 
a pathetic witness to his belief in the power of 
" medicine," in spite of Christian training, on the 
ground around his home the dead bodies of every 
little prowling night animal that had come within 
range of his gun. 

****** 

It was early in his freshman year at Yale that 
Henry received a letter from Nebraska, bearing ex- 
traordinary news. Another young man, just re- 



A Winnebago Boy 195 



turned from Carlisle, had succeeded in breaking the 
Camp of Medicine Lodge and founding a new re- 
ligion. He had taken first the drug mescal which 
had already gotten so strong a hold on the southern 
Indians, and had combined its worship with the 
Bible. This drug, made from the Mexican Peyote, 
is a powerful brain stimulant. When under its ef- 
fect the memory is preternaturally active, the mind 
works with frightful rapidity, and visions and 
scenes of the past life are mingled in confusion. 
But like any other engine overworked the mind 
slowly breaks down and the victim's mental, moral 
and physical fibre gradually disintegrates. The re- 
turned student took this drug and turning to the 
fourteenth chapter of John, he read where Christ 
promised the Comforter to His disciples, saying, 
" He shall teach you all things and bring all things 
to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto 
you." Then he said to his followers : 

" See. There is God the Father, God the Son, 
which is Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Ghost, 
which is Mescal. For the Bible says, ' The Holy 
Ghost shall be in you,' and you drink this mescal 
and it is in you, and it brings all things to your re- 
membrance just as Jesus said it would." 

As a result of this skillful combination, six hun- 
dred of the Indians had gone out in a body and 
the Medicine Lodge, for the first time overpowered 
by the numbers, had been obliged to see them go. 
The leader of the new cult then wrote to Henry 
Cloud, asking him to come home and act as a leader 



196 In Camp and Tepee 



in this new " religion," urging that it was an in- 
fluence for good, as the Mescal men led cleaner, 
soberer lives. 

The young "Winnebago was threshing out his 
answer to this proposition, when Mrs. Roe went to 
New Haven to speak before the Young Men's 
Christian Association at Yale. After hearing her 
address, he secured an appointment to meet and 
talk with her. As soon as the introduction was 
over, he said : 

" Mrs. Eoe, I was glad to hear you speak. I had 
almost begun to believe that it is impossible to 
Christianize the American Indian." 

" Why, Mr. Cloud," she answered, " what made 
you lean towards such an opinion as that ? " 

" Because I am one of them." 

Mrs. Roe, quick to read Indian nature, caught 
the note of discouragement under the brief words 
and said at once that she would like to talk that 
over. Bit by bit, Henry poured out his story and 
this last strange offer of the Carlisle graduate. 

" My tribe has had pure Christianity preached to 
them for nearly thirty years," he concluded. " But 
I almost believe they are too strongly entrenched 
in the tribal religion to receive it. On the other 
hand Mescal has made them open and friendly to 
preaching, and may this not be my opportunity to 
go and take to them the true word of God ? " 

" Mr. Cloud," begged Mrs. Roe, " before you 
come to any conclusion, I would like to have you 
come down and visit our missions. Your tribe is 



A Winnebago Boy 



197 



only beginning with mescal and you have no con- 
ception of the effects of that drug. Our tribes 
have been addicted to it for years, and they can 
show you the inevitable goal if your tribe takes this 
road. Then, too, I can show you tribes every bit as 
demoralized as yours which have not only been 
Christianized but uplifted socially, strengthened 
and civilized by ' pure Christianity ' alone. I can 
introduce you to Indians who are now deep in the 
Mescal worship and to others who, after knowing 
all about it, have abandoned it for Christ. The 
Indians will not appreciate your college training in 
this matter, but they will recognize that which you 
gather from the Indians themselves. Study into 
this matter with us before you venture to teach it 
to your tribe. Will you come ? " 

The young Indian promised that he would. And 
so it was that the early summer of 1907 found him 
on the Comanche Eeservation. 

Mrs. Eoe took him out and introduced him to 
Nahwatz and Periconic, telling these old Mescal 
men of the situation in the young man's tribe and 
of his pending decision, and then she left the young 
Winnebago with the older men. 

Periconic's deep eyes glowed. 

" I walked that road from the beginning almost 
to the end," he said, " and although many colds 
have gone by since I cut it off, my body is marked 
yet by Mescal." 

Nahwatz confirmed his friend. 

" I was a priest of Mescal," he added ; " for thirty 



In Camp and Tepee 



years I folio wed that worship, and there is nothing 
in it. I saw the visions but they are dreams that 
fly away and leave the heart empty and small. 
Young man, go back to lead your tribe along the 
road that fills their hearts with joy." 

This was the beginning of hours of talk, and 
when the Winnebago came to leave he went to 
Mrs. Koe. 

" I have decided," he said. " I am going back to 
ask the missionary to let me help him, and I am 
going to work for Christ." 



XI 



UP-STEEAM WOEK 
ATER in the summer Mrs. Roe was plan- 



ning the itinerary of a speaking trip when 



JL — J she found that her way between two cities 
would lead her through the Winnebago Reservation 
and she wrote Henry Cloud that she would stop for 
a day or two and visit him and his tribe. 

It was a rainy evening when she got off the 
train at the little town, but Henry was await- 
ing her with a carriage and team and drove 
her to the home of a friend. The next day oc- 
curred the semi-annual payment of lease money, 
bringing in the Indians to the agency and affording 
unusual opportunity for meeting and talking with 
them. Henry told a number that this was the lady 
who received and cared for Adam Fisher, and the 
news, spreading from group to group, opened the 
hearts of the Indians. During the day, as now one 
and then another came to talk with the missionary, 
the heart hunger of these people was borne in upon 
her, but the real vision of need and opportunity 
came when Henry asked her to go with him to the 
grave of Mr. Findley. Together they had climbed 
the hill crowned by the Indian cemetery and pass- 
ing between the strange little houses of wood which 




199 



2oo In Camp and Tepee 



the Winnebagoes erect over their dead, had found 
the small white stone which marked the grave of the 
man who had labored so long and patiently for the 
tribe and who had been such an influence in 
Henry's life. 

The young Indian stood looking thoughtfully 
down upon this stone, and Mrs. Eoe, taking her 
place beside him, read with a thrill of sympathetic 
understanding the prophetic words cut on its sur- 
face : "My word shall not return unto me void." 
She realized that in the life of this young man, led 
in his childhood into the friendship of the Master, 
lay the fulfillment of that pledge. Together they 
knelt and asked God's help in the work which must 
be done if the light of God's word were ever to 
shine in that dark place. For a long time they sat 
beside the lonely grave, looking down over the 
valley below them, while Henry explained the con- 
dition of his people. 

" Twenty-five years ago," he said, " my people 
were doing well. They are bright and eager to 
learn. They were poor then and they had to work 
that they might eat. They broke out these farms," 
and he pointed down to the rolling country beneath 
them, with its tufted oaks and waving corn. " They 
built these houses and sent their children to school. 
All these younger Indians speak English well. But 
now this land is very valuable, Mrs. Eoe, and they 
can easily live on their lease money. With increase 
of riches the 4 land grafters ' have come and they 
sit around the edges of this reservation like carrion- 



Up-Stream Work 



201 



crows. They have sold liquor here until a great 
many of the Indians are drunken, debauched and 
immoral. There are almost no legal marriages. 
Oh, Mrs. Roe, there is need for what you are 
doing at Colony. I wish you could come here and 
work ! " 

He spoke of the days of his childhood, and much 
of that friend of his boyhood, Adam Fisher, and his 
brave end. He told of his life at school, and as 
Mrs. Roe listened, living in imagination through 
those years of struggle, she realized afresh the 
strength and power of the young Indian. 

On the evening of the second day Mrs. Roe left 
Winnebago to continue her journey. TThen in 
Pella she spoke of the new work that was being 
done by the Classis of Iowa, which was supporting 
a mission all its own, and one of the ministers, 
filled with enthusiasm, said : 

" "We could do that. The churches of Pella could 
support a mission. Has the Board one that we 
could take ? " 

Then Mrs. Roe told of this needy tribe, asking 
for help at their very doors. Later the Classis of 
Pella said that they would support this mission if 
the church could secure its transfer from the 
Presbyterian Board. 

There can be nothing in the long armals of 
missions which speaks more eloquently of the 
broad, fine spirit of cooperation that exists between 
denominations to-day than does this action of the 
Presbyterian Board, by which they transferred to 



202 In Camp and Tepee 



another church this difficult field on which they 
had been ploughing for so many years and from 
which they had as yet gathered little return for 
their toil. That the action was wise, subsequent 
events have shown ; that it would have been im- 
possible to the men of fifty years ago, none can 
deny. The change undoubtedly hastened on the 
harvest, but the beginning is to be found, not in the 
new regime, but in the faithful seed-sowing of 
patient years. 

In July, 1908, the pioneer three, Mr. Wright and 
Dr. and Mrs. Koe, with two helpers and Henry 
Cloud for interpreter, entered their new field for a 
strenuous campaign. Every morning the teams 
started out in different directions for a day of visits 
in camp and house, and every evening they all 
gathered together again, occasionally holding meet- 
ings to which a few Indians came out of curiosity 
as to this new method of missionary work. At 
first the medicine-men and the Mescal leaders 
viewed this extraordinary activity with contemp- 
tuous indifference, but as the little knot of listeners 
around the missionaries grew in size and importance, 
this indifference changed to surprise, which in turn 
gave way to uneasiness. Wherever the workers 
now gathered the Indians about their fire, the 
medicine-men and the Mescal leaders seated them- 
selves in groups to listen and question concerning 
the new road, and so the days went by. 

By the middle of August the tribe had been 
carefully covered and the missionaries began prep- 



Up-Stream Work 203 



arations for the camp-meeting. The first problem 
was to find a place where they could pitch the camp. 
It was necessary that it be on the reserve if the 
missionaries were to hope for any audience at all. 
After much planning and investigation, and many 
conferences with Henry, Dr. Roe came to his de- 
cision and called his band together one night. 

" Friends," he said, " I have decided to hold the 
camp-meeting on the Flag Pole Hill." 

A gasp went round the little circle at the thought 
of such a use of the land peculiarly set apart for 
Indian dance and worship, but they waited loyally 
to hear his reasons. 

" In the first place it is common tribal land. It 
is central and accessible from every part of the 
reservation and it is the natural meeting-place. 
Henry says the whole tribe is in terror of the 
Medicine Lodge, and that if we are to hope for 
success at all, we must show that for us there is no 
such word as fear. We must strike at the evil in 
its stronghold and in such a way as to silence for 
all time the idea that we are subservient in any way 
to their superstitions. If we place our camp any- 
where else the forces of opposition will claim a 
recognition of their sacred ground and will gain 
accordingly, and if we camp on Flag Pole Hill we 
cannot be ignored. We are sure of an audience at 
least." 

He looked about the ring of eager faces. Mrs. 
Roe nodded smiling, young Mr. Barnes grinned 
approval, Henry's grave eyes gleamed admiration 



204 In Camp and Tepee 



and Miss Meengs bobbed her head vigorously, as 
Mr. Wright slapped his knee, and voiced the opinion 
of them all, " Man dear, that's fine ! " 

So it was that on Thursday, the twentieth of 
August, the missionaries drove in and pitched their 
camp, stretching the white canvas of the gospel tent 
beside the Pow-wow building on the top of the hill. 
* That evening the little band, augmented by the 
arrival of Mrs. Page, held their first meeting. A 
few Indians, all Mescal men, came inside the tent 
and sat down, but the greater part stood just out- 
side where they could watch all that went on, their 
dark eyes gleaming in the light of the flaring gas 
lamps. 

The following morning the service was held in 
the shade, near the gospel tent. The meeting was 
scarcely worthy the name, so few attended, al- 
though the Indians were coming in by all the 
roads, and collected in low-talking groups about the 
weather-beaten walls of the Pow-wow building. 
It was the leader of such a group as this who 
stopped Dr. Roe, when the service was over, and 
the missionary was starting on the usual round of 
camp visits. 

" You may talk for a thousand years," declared 
the Indian defiantly, " but you will never gain one 
man from Medicine Lodge." 

The missionary threw up his head and looked at 
the speaker with the clear steady gaze which had 
won him the name of Iron Eyes and passed on his 
way in silence. 



Up-Stream Work 205 



All day long the Indians gathered in a steady 
stream, and the groups on Flag Pole Hill grew in 
size. 

The afternoon sun fell blazing on the great camp 
as the missionaries gathered for their third meeting. 
The leafy branches hung limp and wilted on the 
light framework of the shade, but the shadow 
beneath was very grateful, and the workers drew 
their chairs about the baby organ in the centre of 
the space, and gazed out between the knotted up- 
rights silhouetted black against the landscape. Far 
and away the reservation stretched, clustered oak 
and rolling meadow swimming in the white hot 
light. The last clear note of Henry Cloud's bugle 
sent out its ringing call and died in the white dis- 
tance. Then they began to come, singly and in 
groups, some ranging themselves in ranks before 
the missionaries, and others standing solid in a 
dense ring about the shade, sitting beyond in the 
shadow of the Pow-wow building, or looking silent 
from its windows. 

The service began with a few hymns in which at 
the other meetings the Mescal men had been join- 
ing, but that afternoon not a sound came from the 
audience and the missionaries' voices sounded pain- 
fully thin and weak against that background of 
silence. Mrs. Roe found herself nervously watch- 
ing the crowd — there a man with folded arms and 
keenly capable face, who stared unwinkingly out 
into the sunshine ; here a white-haired old woman 
who held a beautiful sleeping child in her arms, 



2o6 In Camp and Tepee 



baby and grandmother alike motionless. When 
the singing was ended and Mr. "Wright stepped 
forward to address the people, the young leader of 
Mescal arose and asked for leave to speak. 

" My friends, and you old men, hear me,' 5 he 
said. " It is the will of God that these people 
come to us. We used to think this good news was 
only for the white man, but now we know it is for 
the Indian and our hearts are glad. And now 
these men and women come to tell us of their 
Book. They have had this Book for many years 
and year by year their power has grown. Have 
they not stretched the talking-wire which carries 
their words from place to place with the speed of 
the lightning? Have they not made the great 
engines and harnessed the fire to draw their cars 
through distances? And while the white man's 
power has grown, what have we Indians been 
doing ? All this while we have been losing power. 
We have made no great inventions to help us and 
step by step we have fallen back before the white 
men for we were powerless before them. All this 
time we have been following you, the old men, but 
now the time has come to change. You have led 
us along a road of little strength and to-day we 
are powerless. Now let the young men speak. 
Watch us now and do as we do and let us get back 
the power we have lost." 

So saying he turned to the missionary and 
claimed to be taken into the new church, he and his 
six hundred followers. 



Up-Stream Work 207 



Mr. Wright turned to Dr. Roe who had quietly- 
stepped to his side, and who now asked the leader : 

"And my friend, what of mescal ? " 

" The white man has the Bible which he can 
read," was the quick reply ; " the Indians have 
mescal. Mescal must come too." 

Was it only to hear better that the Medicine 
Lodge men were pressing nearer, coming from the 
Pow-wow building to the shade? Or was there 
something more ominous in that silent closing-in ? 
With swift intuition Dr. Roe saw the dilemma and 
grasped its significance. If the offer of the Mescal 
leader were accepted, the new Christianity would 
be submerged under the weight of this perverted 
form and all further advance would be impossible. 
Yet if it were refused it would seem to these men 
as if the doors of the church were closed against 
them, and they would be driven into the already 
hostile ranks of Medicine Lodge. Then who could 
tell to what lengths they might go ? The quiet, 
steady voice of the missionary broke the tense 
silence and all realized he was telling a story. 

" The White Father in Washington has a great 
army," he began, " and in it are many bands of 
men. There are soldiers who fight on foot and the 
soldiers who fight on horseback, and there are the 
men with the great guns. If a man enters the 
army of the White Father, he must choose which 
band he will enter. He may be a soldier who 
fights on foot, or he may belong to the soldiers who 
fight on horseback, or he may be one of the men 



2o8 In Camp and Tepee 



with the great guns, but he cannot belong to any 
two of these at the same time. He must choose. 

" The army of God has many bands. There are 
the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Dutch Ee- 
formed and many more. When a man enters that 
great army of God he must choose his band ; he 
cannot be a Presbyterian and a Methodist at the 
same time. My friend," he ended, turning to the 
Mescal leader, " no one knows better than you that 
when you joined Mescal you had to throw away 
your Medicine Lodge gods and when you join us, 
you must throw away Mescal and worship God 
alone." 

A murmur of approval followed the speech and 
the climax of opposition was past. From that time 
on, the real work could be done. As the workers 
went among the tents of the camp those next two 
days, they were met by questioning curiosity and 
occasionally by an eager interest that contrasted 
sharply with the stony indifference that had baffled 
every attempted approach. They took every 
advantage of the opportunity, and Sunday night, 
only three days after the medicine-man's confident 
defiance, a church of twenty members was estab- 
lished. 

Soon after the breaking up of the camp-meeting 
the extra force disbanded, scattering to other 
missions, and left Dr. and Mrs. Eoe to the difficult 
and discouraging task of founding and carrying out 
the routine life of the new field. 

The difficulties and distinctive features of the 



Up-Stream Work 209 

new mission soon classified themselves under two 
heads : those due to the presence of the frontier 
whites, and those due to characteristics of the 
Indians themselves. Of the first, there was the 
ever-present liquor interest, unusually strong because 
Sioux City with its unlimited supply was only twenty 
miles away. In addition there was a peculiarly 
shrewd, bold and unscrupulous set of " land grafters" 
whose methods and influence debauched the tribe. 

On the Indian side the forces of heathenism as rep- 
resented by Medicine Lodge were more thoroughly 
organized than in any other tribe with which these 
missionaries had been dealing. A low grade of 
social life found expression in the Pow-wow which 
afforded opportunity for the exercise of prevailing 
Indian vices and had no power of social uplift. 
And the whole difficult situation was made more 
difficult still by the existence of Mescal, the strange 
new cult which, by a combination of a drug habit 
with a vitiated presentation of truth, had drawn off 
some of the best people in the tribe. It had been 
of undoubted service in breaking the power of 
Medicine Lodge and fighting the use of liquor, but 
its very good made its error all the harder to com- 
bat. More than all, the people as a class were not 
ignorant or teachable, but keen, combative, and 
sophisticated in the extreme. 

Thus it was a combination of circumstances 
peculiarly perplexing which the missionaries were 
left to face. It meant days on the road travelling 
between the scattered farms to hold interviews 



210 In Camp and Tepee 



where evasions and oily speeches often seemed the 
order of the day, It meant anxious conferences 
with the agent who was determined to fight the 
liquor problem through to a solution and who 
received enthusiastic support from the workers. 
But as crown and reward of it all came the meet- 
ings at the little church with the few who dared to 
stand out in the face of such odds, and whose faith- 
ful adherence was a constant source of strength. 
* * * * * * 

It was a fine day in the early fall of 1909 and 
Mr. Watermulder was taking the Field Secretary 
for a day of house to house visiting. The missionary 
climbed in, tucked his end of the lap robe carefully 
beneath his leg, and gathered up the reins. 

" Suppose we go first to see Louisa Bear," he 
suggested. " I have scarcely had a chance to talk 
with her since the camp-meeting. I wish you could 
have heard her at that service when she took her 
final stand. She thought she wanted to come at 
the first camp-meeting last year. 

" Yet when I got here last winter, the first time 
I saw her she was lying in z, drunken stupor in a 
wagon. But she kept getting up and trying again. 
And at this camp-meeting — you should have heard 
that talk to her people. She began by reminding 
them to what depths of degradation she had gone 
and then she said : 

" 1 Last year when I first took my stand in the 
meetings some one said to the missionaries that 
even if God above came down to lift me I could 




Louisa Bear. 



Up-Stream Work 



21 1 



not be lifted by Him. Now I want to testify that 
God can do anything if you have faith and trust. 
He has lifted me,' she said. And I believe He has. 
I believe He has." For a few moments the mis- 
sionary absently flicked at a curling end of a harness 
strap with his whip, then he added : " You will see 
it in her face. We all did. And I lay it to that, 
and to the weight given her words by her well- 
known past record, that so many decided to stand 
with us. A hundred of them, had you heard that, 
a hundred ? She will be a great addition," he 
added thoughtfully. 

After two hours' driving they came to the little 
frame house in the hollow and Louisa's big form 
came hurrying from the door to welcome them. 
She led them into the small kitchen and seated 
them on chairs which she hastily dusted and set 
forward. In the course of the conversation which 
followed it appeared that Louisa had something on 
her mind. 

" I have been thinking a great deal about two 
things which happened to me," she said. " First I 
witnessed a drunkard's death. It was my own step- 
son. I prayed and prayed for him to be saved from 
that awful death. I prayed that he might be spared 
and promised that I would bring him to Christ. 
But God let my stepson die without knowing he 
was going to die, without being prepared. Oh, 
that's the terri blest agony I ever suffered. " Louisa's 
lips were trembling and she turned her strong face 
away, looking out of the open door with swimming 



212 In Camp and Tepee 



eyes. After a while she spoke again. "I think 
God meant me to see that death. 

" Then I saw a Christian die this summer at 
our camp-meetings. This man suffered with hem- 
orrhages and he took Jesus as his Saviour when he 
was nearing his death. I did not want to see him 
die. I prayed that I would not be near him. I sat 
up two nights with him and then I was relieved, 
but it was so I happened to wake up and went to 
see how he was towards daylight. He was talking 
and was asking to have something to eat. I woke 
my husband, asked him to start a fire and then I 
warmed some broth and fed him. He seemed to 
feel all right as he talked and joked with us, so 
finally we left him. 

" I started to get things ready for breakfast when 
he called my sister. ' Put out the light,' he said ; 
' the day is here.' All was quiet for about fifteen 
minutes, then he spoke again. 6 There are voices 
above,' he said, ' and I see angels — with the mission- 
aries — standing around my bed.' I asked him what 
the voices were saying, but he just lifted his hands, 
took one long breath and his soul was gone from 
his body." Again came the eloquent pause, then 
after a moment : " 1 believe God meant me to see all 
this and the difference between these two deaths." 

In a short time the visitors rose to go and the big 
Winnebago woman walked with them to the car- 
riage. After they had climbed in and settled 
themselves she still stood beside them, holding by 
the rim of the wheel, and Mr. Watermulder, seeing 



Up-Stream Work 



213 



she had something yet to say, waited patiently. 
Finally she lifted that face of stern strength, where 
already the gentleness of her new life had left its 
mark, and spoke simply to the gravely listening 
man. 

" I thank God and His people that I have taken 
up this Christian life, and I hope with God's help 
that I may never falter again. I wish the same for 
every Indian, and I cannot express my thanks in 
words how you missionaries have saved our people 
from a terrible death. 5 ' 

As the afternoon was well advanced the mission- 
ary turned the team and they jogged along towards 
home. At length a bend in the road brought them 
in sight of a house set back and a little above them. 
Near it on the ground sat an old woman with a 
great heap of golden squashes by her side, and 
behind her stood a shade festooned all its length 
with long yellow streamers. Mr. Watermulder's 
eyes brightened. 

" There is Ocean Woman," he said. " Her people 
are staunch Medicine Lodge supporters. I have 
been meaning to visit her. Shall we not stop and 
see her ? " 

The Field Secretary eagerly assented and they 
drew up and tied the horses. The old woman 
greeted them with a welcoming smile, and stand- 
ing up, sent a ringing call towards the house for an 
interpreter. While they waited for him to put in 
a tardy appearance, the old woman sat down again 
to her work, and the two white people watched 



214 I Q Camp and Tepee 



fascinated. She selected a squash, cut it in half, 
and emptied out the seeds ; then with her sharp 
knife laid flat on the cut edge of the shell, she be- 
gan shaving off a thin layer, turning the squash as 
she cut, and working down spirally, till the whole 
half squash was one long curling streamer of yellow 
meat. Then she lifted it beside the others on her 
drying frame, smiling at the interested faces of 
her watchers. She was making ready her winter's 
supply. 

When the interpreter came, the missionary drew 
out some Cosmos pictures of the life of Christ and 
with graphic words told of each incident suggested 
by them. At first the old woman would examine 
each one and exclaim over it, and then take up her 
interrupted work while the missionary told the 
story. But little by little the narrative wove its 
spell and finally the busy hands were still and 
Ocean Woman's whole attention was fixed on the 
speaker and his pictures. When at last the end 
was reached the old woman sat motionless for a 
long time, her knife loosely clasped by the listless 
fingers, her squash forgotten where it had rolled 
unnoticed. She was looking out over the hills 
bathed in the glory of the setting sun with a far- 
away look in her old eyes. 

" Once in the forgotten years when I was a girl," 
she said at last, " when we lived in the Far Country 
(she meant Wisconsin) the black gowns (priests) 
came and told us that same story. From that day 
to this I have never heard those good words." 



Up-Stream Work 215 



The missionary saw that the desired impression 
had been made, and with a sign to his companion 
he got up and they softly went away, leaving the 
old woman sitting by her golden heap and gazing 
silently across the years. 

****** 

So year has followed year at the Winnebago 
Mission and slowly the work has grown. The 
church now numbers nearly two hundred and the 
West Chapel has been built at the far end of the 
reservation, better to meet the growing needs. The 
old parsonage has been converted into a Kescue 
Home and a new one has taken its place. These 
are the signs of advance. 

But meanwhile the Medicine Lodge, the Pow-wow 
and Mescal have recovered from their first con- 
fusion and are in organized opposition. Then how 
to summarize present conditions ? Perhaps the best 
epitome is found in the words written by Dr. Roe 
at the beginning : 

" But we must not think that we shall glide 
easily down the current of this Winnebago enter- 
prise. It will be up-stream work for years, for 
mixed truth and error and a burnt-over field form 
a hard, unromantic combination to set right and the 
problem . . . will call for patient persistence, 
breadth of treatment, and a compelling faith. These 
we must all give, and to God the victory." 



XII 



MESCALEEO APACHES 

0]STE winter, on one of his trips, Dr. Koe, 
who never missed an opportunity to be- 
come acquainted with any Indian tribe, 
stopped off to visit an agency and school in a lonely 
valley in New Mexico, a valley surrounded by 
mountains of grandeur and beauty unspeakable. 
He stayed but a few days, watching the children 
in the school and the unkempt Indians in the hill- 
side camp beyond the agency, drawing the workers 
on to talk, listening and learning much. Quiet 
days they seemed yet pregnant in after results, one 
of the first of which was a letter. 

"August 1, 1907. 
"Dear Fellow- Workers of the Reformed Church : 

" Again the Lord beckons and we must fol- 
low on. Again a door of opportunity springs open 
and we must enter in. The blessing of God on our 
Indian work in the past becomes the guarantee of 
new conquest, and we stand at attention while 
faith says, 'Keady, Lord.' 

" Out among the mountains of New Mexico, on 
a reservation that has never been allotted, lives a 
tribe of Indians called the Mescalero Apaches. 
They are closely related to the Geronimo band of 

216 



Mescalero Apaches 217 



captive Apaches at Fort Sill, among whom for 
years our church has been carrying on a flourishing 
mission. Their school and agency are at Mesca- 
lero, eighteen miles from the railroad, and they 
live by agriculture, lumbering, stock-raising, and 
the sale of the products of their native arts. 

"For years from their mountain homes they 
have looked down upon the broad valleys, south, 
east, and west, where lie the towns of the white 
man, and the transcontinental trains rush by, but 
the civilization which these things represent has 
laid but a light hand upon their aboriginal life and 
character. When some of us this winter visited 
the school with its more than one hundred children 
and held a service with them, we were told that for 
four years only one other Protestant sermon had 
been preached there, and the agent informed us that 
the people in the camps had for the most part never 
heard of Christ. Absolute heathen in a Christian 
land, but deserted by the Church of Christ in that 
land and without hope of missionary succor from 
other lands. 

" Direct on the heels of the discovery of this 
crying need comes the ringing call. Agent Carroll 
pleaded with me to take these people on our hearts, 
and to plant a mission near the school, where we 
could give religious instruction to the children, and 
at the same time carry the Gospel to the camps 
scattered among the mountains. He pledged to us 
his earnest cooperation, assuring us that a suitable 
site would be set apart and that every help and en- 



218 In Camp and Tepee 



couragement possible would be given us. In this 
request he was urgently joined by the rest of the 
workers. 

"Further, for several years, there has been a 
strong agitation among our band of Apaches at 
Fort Sill, who are anxious to be removed to the 
Mescalero Keservation, and while this will not be 
done now, it is highly probable that the transfer 
may be made before long. 

" Nor is this all. To the north live the Pueblo 
tribes, and the Jicarilla Apaches ; to the west the 
San Carlos and White Mountain Apaches ; while 
straddling the line between New Mexico and Ari- 
zona lies the great Navajo Eeservation, with its 
score of thousands of neglected souls. To the south 
across the national border there stand waiting for 
the Gospel over five million of full-bloods in Mexico 
alone, and no man knowt how many beyond in the 
countries of Central and South America, We have 
but skirmished with this larger Indian question. 
Towards the southwest lies the field of battle. Let 
us, too, get into the fight." 

Such was the letter, and the response to it was 
prompt and generous. 

Early in November along the dreary road lead- 
ing from Tularosa, New Mexico, over the desert to 
the mountains the mail-wagon pursued its placid 
way. The slow trampling of the mules scarcely 
disturbed the lizards sunning themselves in the 
fine, powdery, gray sand. The Mexican driver 



Mescalero Apaches 219 



sleepily watched his mules' sagging ears, but the 
solitary passenger beside him, Mr. Fincher, the 
new missionary to the Mescaleros, scanned every- 
thing with eager eyes keen for a sight of his In- 
dians and his work. He marked the sharp shad- 
ows in the shallow ruts of the road, the spray-like 
tufts of grass, the gray prickly desert growth that 
covered the level floor from which the jagged bar- 
rier of the Sacramento Mountains uprose with all 
the rugged unexpectedness of some incongruous 
dream. His eyes searched the scarred, furrowed 
slopes for signs of life. At first he thought them 
bare of all foliage, but as the solemn progress of 
the mules brought him nearer, he saw the scattered 
stunted cedars and pinon bushes that fringed the 
lower reaches and above here and there the slender 
spire of some sentinel pine. After a time they en- 
tered a canyon, wide at first, but gradually growing 
narrow, till the mountains seemed to press upon 
the trail ; up and up they climbed till a bend was 
reached and rounded and the agency lay in sight. 
The road wavered across the level of the valley 
that stretched flat as a pool between the rugged 
slopes of its encircling mountains to a line of build- 
ings. On one hand a group of dingy smoke-stained 
tepees clung to a hillside, and on the road a white- 
nosed donkey, carrying two old women on his back, 
drew aside to let them pass. They had reached 
Mescalero. 

He made his headquarters at the agency, but 
each Monday, rolling up bedding and provision for 



220 In Camp and Tepee 



himself and his horse, and lashing it securely to the 
back of his heavy saddle, he would set out with 
Solon, the interpreter, to find his people. Up the 
canyons from the agency, sometimes by a brawling 
mountain stream, sometimes following a narrowing 
trail through the forest where he had to dismount 
to crawl under, or make his way about some giant 
pine that had been uprooted to come crashing across 
the path, such might be his road to the camp he 
sought. Or it would lead up the mountainside 
higher and higher into the thin air along rocky 
wind-swept ridges where the ice came early and 
stayed late. Occasionally the missionary had to 
abandon his horse altogether and, shouldering his 
pack, make his way along on foot, sometimes in the 
worst places obliged to crawl on hands and knees. 
But at night he reached the mesa and the solitary 
tepee braced against the biting wind with the 
huddling shape of the sweat-lodge beside it. Then 
the welcome in bronzed wrinkled faces and the 
eager attention as all gathered about the flickering 
fire blotted out the memory of the hard trail. 

He grew to know his Apaches as industrious, 
hard-working people to a degree amazing when he 
considered their surroundings. There was little 
incentive to labor, yet he found these men herders 
of cattle and sheep, tillers of fields, makers of roads, 
and members of the various gangs of workmen that 
by slow degrees were rebuilding the agency and 
the school. He watched them and wondered if 
white men, who had been placed in their situation 



Mescalero Apaches 221 



and limited by their inherited outlook, would have 
worked at all in a road so new and so incompre- 
hensible. 

Two years he worked among them — two busy 
years during which he built his house and a church 
and organized a membership of nineteen. He set 
himself to learning the Mexican Spanish which the 
Indians understood and he fairly lived in their 
camps. His diary was filled with brief picturesque 
glimpses of their lives. Here was an old woman 
washing her clothes, who laid her garments on a 
rock in a swirl of the Euidoso's icy water and with 
her bare feet tramped up and down upon them 
beating out the dirt. Again he walked five miles 
up a canyon to see an Indian who had been accident- 
ally shot. He found him lying with bandaged 
head on a bed of skins, and sat beside him talking 
while the old mother sat near by listening as she 
cooked the dinner of the blackest of black coffee, 
and dough fried in hot tallow. Another time he 
spent the night in an Indian hut where he could lie 
and see the frosty stars through the roof when the 
mercury was sixteen degrees below freezing and the 
only warmth came from a broken cook-stove ; eat- 
ing with the family soda-biscuits, fat meat and the 
inevitable black coffee, and sleeping with them 
where the rats and the polecats could run over 
their prone figures. 

Everywhere are glimpses of how the people were 
taking his message. One old woman over eighty 
years of age rode ten miles over the mountain to 



222 In Camp and Tepee 



hear him when she knew he was coming even that 
near. One night he gathered a crowd of thirty 
about the great fire in the camp of Magoosh and. 
as he looked about the ring of brown faces, it came 
to him how much sorrow must lie hidden in those 
thirty lives. Looking thus, he had talked of the 
life everlasting lying beyond the threshold of death, 
and of an immortality of joy. Leaning forward, 
questioning, eager, they seized on the new idea. 
They often surprised him with the depth of their 
thought. 

" White man ! " said one Indian in explanation, 
" the Indian has just a few things to think about, 
so his mind travels a long way on these few things. 
But the white man has many things. His mind 
can go only a little way with each." 

The missionary wondered if it were not so. 

There were contradictory experiences standing 
side by side. A man came to the missionary for a 
Bible and when it was given to him, sat down in 
the sun and looked it through, turning the pages 
with reverent fingers, and then hugged it to his 
breast. The very same day the missionary had a 
long and fruitless talk trying to persuade an 
Indian who had been away to school four years 
that the trouble with his eyes could not have been 
caused by the " Witch Doctor " who had camped 
near by. He heard much of the " Witch Doctors " 
and found the belief in their power for sickness or 
even death a strange delusion to which old and 
young clung tenaciously. 



Mescalero Apaches 223 



In 1910, owing to family reasons and the pressure 
brought to bear by old friends, Mr. Fincher left the 
Indian work, and returned to his former field to the 
great regret of the Women's Board, which felt they 
could not spare so efficient a worker. 

He was replaced by Mr. and Mrs. Harper, ex- 
perienced Indian missionaries, who had been for 
some time at Colony. Shortly after they came, 
word was brought to the parsonage that old 
Manuella was very sick and likely to die. Mrs. 
Harper hurried out to the camp on the hillside to 
find the little shrivelled form of a white-haired old 
woman lying on a bed in a patched, tattered tepee. 
She was plainly in the grip of pleurisy, and the 
weight of more than ninety years made it a long 
fight to save her. Every day the missionary visited 
her with food and medicine doing all she knew for 
her comfort. Manuella watched from her bed and 
treasured it up in her heart. As soon as she was 
able to get about she set out for the parsonage, a 
tiny bent figure, leaning on a knotted staff much 
taller than herself. Finding Mrs. Harper, she 
offered her a dime, extending it in the hollow of her 
wrinkled palm. 

"What is this for, Manuella?" asked the mis- 
sionary. 

" You took care of me," came the answer in 
Spanish. " I give it to you." 

" No, Manuella, I took care of you because I 
love you, It is what I came here to do. I cannot 
take your money." 



224 ^ n Camp and Tepee 



The old woman stood a moment fingering her 
dime, a bewildered look on her withered face. 
Then she nodded her white head and turning about, 
hobbled away. A few days later she returned with 
a beaming face, and this time handed the missionary 
a dollar, the entire amount of a month's income. 

" I understand," she said. " You took care of 
me a great deal. I brought you very little. Now 
I bring you this." 

Mrs. Harper tried to explain more clearly, telling 
the old woman of Jesus and how He loved the sick 
and helped them. He had told His children to do 
the same, she said. 

" It is because we love you Indians, Manuella," 
she concluded. " Tou cannot pay us for love." 

The little old Apache peered up into the mission- 
ary's face in silence for a while. 

" You love me. I cannot pay you for love," she 
repeated. It was a new idea and her old eyes were 
full of wonder. At last she turned away the second 
time. It was several months before she came again, 
for her son was away from the agency almost all 
summer, but as soon as the family returned Man- 
uella appeared, this time carrying a fairly heavy 
bundle. She came into the parsonage hall, and set 
it on the floor. Then she straightened up and 
gripping her staff, looked about her under the shade 
of one of her wrinkled hands, seeking with dim 
eyes for the missionary's wife. So Mrs. Harper 
found her. 

" All summer I have been turning your words 



Mescalero Apaches 225 



over and over," she said. " My heart is full of 
love for you, because you took care of me when I 
was sick. Now I have brought you this to tell you 
of the love in my heart." So saying she undid her 
bundle, and shook out the most beautiful deerskin 
the missionary had ever seen, tanned as only an 
Indian woman could tan it. 

The white woman gave an exclamation of sur- 
prise and pleasure as the soft brown skin unfolded. 
Old Manuella's face fairly blazed with joy as she 
caught the worker's hand and kissed it. She 
watched with nodding head while the deerskin 
was set in a place of honor, then she tapped away 
with her knotted staff, satisfied. 

Every Sunday, morning and evening services were 
held in the church where a strange modification 
was made in seating arrangements to allow for a 
custom, known among many Indian tribes, but car- 
ried to an extreme by the Mescaleros, which made 
a meeting of a son-in-law with his mother-in-law a 
thing to be strenuously avoided. At first the moth- 
ers-in-law had met in a small anteroom, but this 
proving inconvenient, a curtain was put up shutting 
off a part of the main audience room and behind 
this screen the old women could sit and hear all 
that went on without any danger of looking into 
the eyes of their sons-in-law. This separation was 
part of all their lives. They could not share a 
daughter's comfortable home, for a man's tepee was 
open always to his own mother, but never to the 
mother of his wife. If she chose to be near her 



226 In Camp and Tepee 



daughter she must live in such a hut or shelter as 
she could provide herself, and miserable indeed 
such a shelter usually proved. This deep-rooted 
custom had to be regarded and by the curtain ar- 
rangement the meetings could usually proceed with 
decorum, although even then unforeseen embarrass- 
ment might arise. The missionaries would long 
remember the time of their first Christmas tree 
when Chokane got drunk. In spite of the fact that 
her son-in-law was interpreter she came boldly into 
the open part of the church and sat down. That 
would have been scandalous enough but worse was 
yet to come. When the minister's talk was in mid- 
flow, and the interpreter was repeating the phrases 
with eyes fixed sedulously on the floor, she arose 
and poured forth a torrent of abuse and scorn upon 
the unfortunate man. For a few moments all were 
too shocked to move, then some one got up and led 
her out. The strength of the interpreter's char- 
acter was shown by the fact that in spite of the 
insult put upon him — to be so berated in public by 
a woman, and that woman his mother-in-law — he 
overcame his mortified rage and continued the 
service. There was not an Indian present who 
did not appreciate the greatness of his self-control. 

In every Indian tribe there seems to be some 
intoxicant whose lure cannot be resisted which 
stands in the way of all progress. "With many it 
is whiskey that plays the destroyer's role. With 
some it is the drug mescal, with the Mescaleros it 
is the native brew " tiswin." The old women are 



Mescalero Apaches 227 



the brewers of the tribe. They take corn and bury 
it deep in the earth till it shall have partially de- 
cayed. Then it is dug up and put through some 
secret process known only to the old women. 
When it is ready, they send out word and Indians 
come from far and near to purchase the " tiswin," 
at five cents a tin cupful. It is very intoxicating, 
so that an Indian may get drunk with very little. 
The Government has indeed forbidden the making 
of this drink but the selling of it is a source of in- 
come not to be despised, and therefore in some se- 
cluded spot the old women often meet to ply their 
traffic. Then the agent finds the Indians drunk 
and knows that tiswin is in the camp. At such 
times there is apt to be fighting, and riot let loose. 

One summer evening four little boys came to 
the mission, and the workers, used to such visita- 
tions, got out some games and pictures to amuse 
them. For a time the children appeared satisfied 
but after a while the oldest came to Mrs. Harper. 

" We are hungry," he said. 

Thinking, as was often the case, that they were 
curious about the white man's food, Mrs. Harper 
led them in and seating them at the table, supplied 
each with a glass of lemonade and a piece of cake. 
They devoured it to the last crumb and then 
returned to the porch, where they continued to 
stay until so late that Mr. Harper finally told them 
that it was time now to go home to bed. 

" We no go to bed," volunteered one of the boys, 
but the missionary paid no attention, except to 



228 In Camp and Tepee 



send theni along. Later when the lights were out 
and the mission family had turned in for the night, 
sounds were heard on the front porch. Mr. Harper 
went down and opened the door. The porch chairs 
had been overturned and piled in a barricade 
across one corner where the vines threw a deep 
shadow, and there lay the four little boys on the 
floor with a hammock for a coverlet. Across the 
dark from the Indian camp came shouts and 
laughter and wild singing. The missionary sighed. 
They had gotten the "tiswin" again. Then he 
looked back at the children huddled under his 
hammock, the key to their strange behavior in his 
mind. Two of the boys had drinking parents, the 
others, their close intimates, were with them to keep 
them company. At last he spoke. 

" Boys, do you want to sleep here to-night ? " 

Four little figures sat bolt upright. 

" Yes ! Yes ! " they cried. 

The missionary considered. 

" Are you hungry ? " he asked. 

" We have no supper," was the answer. Mrs. 
Harper had by this time come to the door also. 
She now turned and went in search of something 
substantial to eat, which she soon brought back and 
handed out to the oldest boy who carefully divided 
it into equal shares. The children were still 
munching when Mr. Harper returned with some 
quilts to make them a bed in their barricaded 
corner, and, comforted, they slent peacefully until 
morning. 



XIII 



THE EELEASE 

"WO distinctive lines of work these mission- 



JL directly from the prairie Indian Missions 
and modified to meet their own peculiar needs — 
the camp-meeting and the social work of the 
Mohonk Lodge. 

First, as to the camp-meeting. There was no 
such custom among the Mescaleros as the chief's 
entertainment of his counselling warriors 1 which 
prevailed among the prairie-tribes. The workers 
were loth to lose the undoubted help of a time of 
concentrated effort each year when the truth could 
be presented, and presented again and yet again, 
one impression following before the last had a 
chance to fade, until an imprint that might not be 
erased was made. This then was made the basis of 
the Mescalero modification of the camp-meeting 
idea. At the mountain-mission, services were held 
in the church every morning and evening for two 
weeks each year. The audiences gathered, the 
men with short hair and in citizen's dress, the 
women in loose hanging waists, full skirts, and 
moccasins and leggings — a very different crowd 
from the camp-meeting audience, in outward ap- 




aries to the mountain Indians borrowed 



^ee pages 96 and 97. 
229 



230 In Camp and Tepee 



pearance at any rate. But when the services began 
the similarity showed itself. There were the same 
listening, eager faces, the same hard, indifferent 
faces, the same crying of the babies, and crooning 
of old women, the earnest words of the preacher, 
and the strange explosive paraphrase of the inter- 
preter. Elder Sanspuer here was the one who 
prayed for his people, and Solon and Detcheel were 
those who led the Indian meetings with their 
earnest talk. And always there was the singing 
which they loved. 

The Indian Lodge grew out of just such needs as 
Mrs. Roe had found at Colony. Old women were 
left, abandoned without food or shelter. How 
were they to be cared for ? The four little boys 
who took refuge from the horrors of the " tiswin 
crazy camp, what was to be done for such as 
they, when the winter made a bed on the porch 
impracticable ? Then there was the little baby 
that died of pneumonia, although doctor and mis- 
sionaries had struggled valiantly for her life, simply 
because a tepee could not afford the protection 
necessary. All these things and many more cried 
for a remedy, and the Indian Lodge was built. 

As among the Comanches, no attempt was made 
to handle an industrial department, for that was 
efficiently carried on by the Mohonk Lodge at 
Colony which found a market for Mescalero prod- 
ucts and supplied the women with work, but the 
house was built to meet the social needs. There 
was the common meeting room with stove, table 



The Release 



231 



and cooking utensils ; there was the matron's room ; 
the hospital room ; the places for Indian families in 
case of need ; and lastly the bath-room and shower- 
bath so necessary here where icy mountain streams 
offer no opportunities for cleanliness. So the idea 
of the Mohonk Lodge, already a proved success 
among Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and Comanches, was 
to begin its work among the Mescaleros. 

While this expansion and adaptation of methods 
was going on, schemes were on foot at Fort Sill 
and in Washington, destined to profoundly affect 
the mountain-mission. 

****** 

It will be remembered that in 1897 the Kiowa, 
Comanche, and Kiowa-Apache Indians granted 
28,000 acres of land 1 to be used for allotment of 
the Apache prisoners of war, by a treaty which 
also provided that in case the land were not so 
used it should revert to its original owners : namely, 
these three tribes. At the time there can be no 
doubt of the sincerity of purpose of the Govern- 
ment. A liberal appropriation was made and 
under Captain, now General, Scott, a regime was 
entered upon looking towards the individualization 
and eventual freedom of these Indian prisoners. 
But unfortunately the wise program was aban- 
doned and the military rule was tightened until 
private initiative was choked and interest died, 
while discontent, especially among the educated 
element, grew. 

1 See above page 129. 



232 In Camp and Tepee 



Dr. Roe, writing from Washington, whither he 
had gone to fight for their rights, well sums up 
the condition : 

" Those who understand the Indian know only 
too well that discouragement and discontent un- 
nerve him for action, and lay him open to the 
onset of his besetting sins. TVhen he 1 gets a bad 
heart,' according to his own vernacular, the whole 
world goes bad for him. This happened at Fort 
Sill. These prisoners of war, 4 seeing no way out,' 
as they express it, and chafing under captivity, 
have lost zest even in their own affairs, and hare 
become an easy prey to drunkenness, gambling, 
and immorality. . . . As an offset against such 
personal and tribal demoralization as this, it is 
futile, if not base, to balance up a communal herd 
of 7,000 cattle and tribal assets amounting to 
$162,000. These things, however good in them- 
selves, are hardly compensation for the degradation 
of the manhood and womanhood of the owners. 

" But, you say, it is incredible that these people 
are still held as prisoners of war ! It seems in- 
credible, but it is certainly so. For twenty-six 
years they have been held in captivity. The com- 
mittee of investigation (appointed from their own 
number) after stating that there are one hundred 
and twelve children whose parents have never 
fought against the Government, closes its report 
with these pathetic words : 

" 6 There are only six Apaches living who fought 
against the Government. TTe and our children 



The Release 



233 



are held here as prisoners of war which we feel 
is unjust. Some of our band, who are held in 
captivity instead of fighting against the Govern- 
ment, were enlisted in the United States army 
and helped it. It tends to make our people rest- 
less and discouraged, feeling the great injustice 
done them.' 

" It will be literally true that the iniquity of the 
fathers is visited upon the children unto the third 
and fourth generation, if this thing goes on much 
longer. 

" Furthermore, their captivity is not merely 
nominal or constructive, as is sometimes claimed, 
but very real, even though they are not in shackles 
or surrounded by prison walls. They must report 
day by day to the officer in charge for assignment 
of work. They may not leave the reservation for 
more than a few hours without permission, nor 
enter into business arrangements of their own. No 
member of another tribe will marry into their cap- 
tivity, so that now they must marry 4 in and in,' to 
the detriment of their offspring. iSTo home with 
even a trifling plot of ground which they may love 
and beautify can be assured to them. To be denied 
freedom, independence, love, home — is this not 
captivity de facto ? 

" ' How has this thing been possible ? ' The ex- 
planation is summed up in one word — land. Long 
ago the Apaches would have been set free had not 
that act involved the settlement of their land 
rights. With the coming and going of the Span- 



234 I n Camp and Tepee 



ish War, the martial spirit awoke, the army was 
expanded, and Fort Sill, instead of being aban- 
doned, was enlarged to a regimental post at a 
cost of $1,250,000, while plans were conceived and 
drawn for its development into an immense bri- 
gade establishment. For the execution of these 
ambitious designs, it was deemed necessary not 
only to retain the 23,240 acres of the original 
military reservation intended for the Apaches, 
but also to absorb the 28,000 acres given by the 
Kiowas, Comanches, and Kiowa- Apaches specific- 
ally ' for the permanent settlement thereon of the 
Apache prisoners of war. 5 To this end there have 
been repeated propositions looking to the trans- 
portation of the band to some Western reservation 
with scant regard for the rights of the Indians. 
Unfortunately the old-time element among them, 
drawn by the ' call of the wild ' and the traditions 
of the past, as well as the longing to escape from 
captivity at any cost, have cooperated with this 
plan at manifestly their disadvantage. The most 
potent factor at present, however, in preventing 
justice to these long-suffering people, is found in 
the clamorous opposition of the white population 
of the region. They want the country settled with 
taxable white people instead of Indian allottees on 
inalienable lands. 

" A few months ago, at a tribal council, about 
one hundred and forty elected to go to Mescalero, 
New Mexico, to be settled there on equal terms 
with their cousins, the Mescalero Apaches, while 



The Release 



235 



about ninety-five, representing the most progressive 
element, chose to remain at Fort Sill. Legislation 
adapted to the wishes of both of these parties is 
now being framed, and it is the earnest hope of 
all friends of the Indian that the Sixty-second 
Congress will bring an end to a regime so anoma- 
lous and unjust." 

It might be interesting to state that the propo- 
sition as submitted to the tribal council above- 
mentioned was : who would choose to go free to 
Mescalero, and who to remain captive at Fort Sill. 
Nothing was said of the alternative to remain in 
freedom at Fort Sill. Considering this, it is scarcely 
to be wondered at that only the progressive ele- 
ment, sufficiently educated to know their rights, 
could see that here was any choice at all. It was 
largely due to the efforts of Dr. Eoe, representing 
this progressive element and fighting for their 
rights, that the clause adapted to their wishes was 
inserted in the proposed legislation. He remained 
in Washington watching over the progress of the 
bill and stirring up public opinion in the matter all 
through the winter and spring, in spite of repeated 
warnings as to the danger of the northern winter 
climate. He won his cause, but he paid the price, 
for one month before the Apaches were finally 
released, their champion died. 

On April 1, 1913, the band was given their release 
and such freedom as other Indians, wards of the 
Government, may enjoy. At that time the eighty 
who elected to remain were transferred to the care 



236 In Camp and Tepee 



of the Comanche Mission at Lawton, the Apache 
buildings were closed and abandoned, and two of 
the workers there went with the hundred and 
seventy who, with their cattle and household goods, 
set out for New Mexico. There are two accounts 
of the journey and the arrival, one written by Mr. 
Sluyter, the missionary to the Comanches who 
accompanied them to Mescalero, and the other by 
Mr. Harper who received them. 

Mr. Sluyter's account runs thus : 

" The announcement that the Apaches were to be 
given their liberty caused no little uneasiness on the 
part of some people who had not kept abreast with 
the movement of events, for they actually were 
persuaded to believe that soon there would be 
turned loose upon them a band of wild men whose 
chief delight would be to destroy and plunder. 
One of the senators in "Washington aided in creat- 
ing this impression. This false idea and the danger 
which confronted several cattle barons who have 
fattened their pocketbooks by leasing for a small 
sum large tracts of the Mescalero Eeservation, 
made feeling somewhat bitter against the removal 
of the Apaches to that reservation. All manner of 
threats had been circulated against the attempt on 
the part of the Government to carry out their plan. 

" On April 2d, the day set for the removal, the 
writer of this article was in Lawton making some 
final preparations for accompanying the Apaches 
to their new home, when he was accosted by T. E. 
Brents, special enforcement officer from the Interior 



The Release 



2 37 



Department. "We compared notes and agreed that 
we could look for anything but a smooth journey 
to Mescalero. The threats and intense hatred, 
based on ignorance, might show themselves in 
bombs or thrown switches. 

"At four o'clock Wednesday afternoon the 
special train of five tourist cars, eight freight and 
stock cars and two baggage cars pulled out of the 
Fort Sill Station. Beside the 170 Apaches on board 
there were Major Goode, who has had charge of 
the prisoners of war the last two years, Sergeant 
Branch, one of the major's aides, a doctor, a nurse, 
three private soldiers, Mr. Brents, the writer of 
this article, Miss Hospers and Miss Prince — the 
latter three are workers identified with the Ee- 
formed Church Mission at Fort Sill. Miss Hospers 
and Miss Prince are appointees of the Women's 
Board of Domestic Missions and transferred from 
the Fort Sill Mission to the Mescalero Mission. 

" At Tucomari, X. M., the first stop of importance 
was made. Here the train was greeted by crowds 
of people who thronged around the station to get a 
glimpse of the famous Geronimo band. Young 
and old, rich and poor, white and black — all were 
there. The schools had been dismissed for the 
occasion. Those who knew (?) pointed out Miss 
Hospers and Miss Prince as daughters or captives 
of Geronimo. The wife of Geronimo was with us 
but she kept herself quite in the background. Such 
bead-work as the Indians had was bought up 
eagerly by the sightseers. 



238 In Camp and Tepee 



"It was on Thursday night that an incident 
happened which for a time seemed to justify a pre- 
caution I had taken before leaving Oklahoma, to 
leave on my desk such instructions as might prove 
valuable in case of accident or treachery ; for, some 
time after we had retired for the night, we were 
awakened by an Apache coming into our car talk- 
ing excitedly to the forms hidden by the berth 
curtains. In a moment heads stuck out of each 
berth and the first sight which greeted our eyes 
was an ugly wound on the head of our porter bleed- 
ing profusely. The Indian explained that there 
had been a fight on one of the other cars. It was 
some time before it was made plain to us that two 
porters had come together, and that it was a matter 
for the Pullman conductor and not for a display 
of arms in the defense of life and limbs. 

" It was a great relief to the Mescalero agent, 
C. S. Jefferies, his deputies, and our missionary, Rev. 
R. H. Harper, to see the headlight of the special 
train come in sight about 2 : 30 o'clock Friday morn- 
ing. In a remarkably short time the horses were 
unloaded and fed. The closest vigilance was kept 
up the remainder of the night. 

" A large camp of Mescalero Indians awaited our 
coming to truck household goods, baggage, etc., up 
the winding road for eighteen miles to the Mes- 
calero agency, situated 6,600 feet above sea-level. 

u At different angles in the road one could get a 
view of the long caravan of loaded wagons. It 
was an inspiring sight and to us it gave a thrill of 



The Release 



239 



satisfaction to know that we were accompanying a 
band of Indians not cut-throats, but men, women, 
and children, clothed and in their right mind, a 
model lot, and in the words of the government 
special enforcement agent, 1 the best bunch of In- 
dians in the country.' He referred to the ninety- 
five souls belonging to the band left in Oklahoma 
as well as to those now drawing near to the home 
of their choice. 

"The Eeformed Church at Mescalero was 
strengthened from the band Sunday, April 6th, 
by eighty-nine members in full communion and 
their baptized children. The Fort Sill Apaches 
will be an inspiration and a help to the less 
civilized Apaches of Mescalero." 

The satisfactory ending was not yet, however. 
The newcomers were herded in a camp by the 
agency where they lived in heat and dust to await 
the unrolling of yards of red tape necessary be- 
fore they could be taken to their permanent loca- 
tion at White Tail Canyon. Mr. Jefferies hurried 
matters as fast as he could but the delay came from 
higher up. At first the Indians were very patient, 
the men reporting at once for work and riding off 
to work on roads, set up the telephone poles to 
White Tail, or herded sheep, while the women 
cheerfully bore the burden and heat of the dusty 
camp — a burden made heavier by the fact that the 
horses had to be sent to White Tail to graze, there 
being no grass at the agency, and there was no 
help in the tasks of hauling wood and water. But 



240 In Camp and Tepee 



as days stretched into weeks and the weeks filled 
out a month and more the spirit of the Indians 
changed. Drinking and gambling sprang up again 
as the young men lapsed into inaction, sullen with 
hope deferred. The old war chief, Kaiche, alone 
now in the leadership of his people. Geronimo be- 
ing dead, stood firmly against the growing discon- 
tent and the older stronger men rallied about him. 

Then came the move to White Tail at last. 
But even then vexations were not ended. It was 
true that the springs had been opened up so that 
water was available — for the hauling. But not a 
house had been built, for the machinery for the 
sawmill had only just arrived and been installed. 
A little lumber had been sawed, but none was 
dressed or dried nor was there much prospect of its 
being in suitable condition for use before winter. 
Part of the grazing land, which the Indians had 
been led to expect would be for the use of their 
cattle, had been re-leased to white men, and worst 
of all the money to be realized from the sale of 
their herd of 7,000 at Fort Sill, which was to be 
turned into the purchase of cattle at Mescalero, 
was not forthcoming. Major Goode had been to 
Washington to secure the transfer of this cattle- 
money to an individual fund from which the In- 
dians might draw, and had deposited it in the 
Treasury, but somewhere it had disappeared. 
Every morning l^aiche, who was holding his 
people to their work with an iron grip, rode up to 
the agency to see if it had come, and every morning 



The Release 241 

he returned, a pathetic figure in his stoical disap- 
pointment, to face the jeers of his waiting camp, 

Late in August came a belated payment and 
twelve hundred cattle were bought as against the 
seven thousand left behind. After that things 
were on the mend. The Indians, inured to in- 
justice, accepted the inevitable. When all was said 
and done they were thankful for their liberty, so 
Naiche and his party won the day. Then it was 
that the old war chief lined out for his people their 
new battle-field. 

" The Christian road is not an easy road," he said 
to them in one of the meetings in the church at 
Mescalero. " There are hard things sometimes. 
But we all understand there is work we have to 
do. We cannot understand all at once. We learn 
slowly, but after a while we will understand. I 
think God sent us here to help our Mescalero In- 
dians on to the J esus road. We must be thinking 
God sent us here for that, and we must work." 

In producing one man with such a spirit the 
Apache Mission at Fort Sill would have justified 
its being. But there were others and the Mescalero 
Indians were to feel their power. Already they 
were singing the Christian songs which Naiche's 
Indians had set to the haunting cadences of native 
airs. Now they were to hear of this Jesus road 
from new missionaries who spoke not Spanish but 
Apache, the strange difficult tongue that no white 
man can fully learn — Apache, the language of 
their hearts. 



XIV 



TOWAEDS THE SOUTHWEST 

IN the spring of 1914 the Board of Domestic 
Missions took over, as a memorial to Dr. Koe, 
a mission which had been carried on for two 
years and a half by private enterprise among a tribe 
which had long claimed his interest, the Jicarilla 
Apaches. He had heard of them first, when on a 
visit to New Mexico, looking for a site for a sani- 
tarium for Indian victims of tuberculosis, as a 
peculiarly neglected branch of the great Apache 
family. In March, 1911, with Mr. Kincaide, man- 
ager of the Mohonk Lodge, he visited them. He 
found a tribe located on a mountain reservation, 
with poor land, no work and in dire need, sur- 
rounded by ignorant Mexicans whom they regarded 
with fixed and indomitable hostility bred of mem- 
ories of outrage and oppression. They were abso- 
lute pagans, all. 

By November of that same year wealthy friends 
had been interested and a worker was sent out. 
The young man found the Indians in a condition of 
want that seems to baffle description. 

" The way the snow drives down these canyons 
is terrible," he writes. " And these Indians, it is 
awful the way they have to live. I can hardly 

242 



Towards the Southwest 



stand it. They have no land to work. They have 
no employment given them. They have absolutely 
no money given them. They are not half -fed for 
this kind of weather, and no clothes at all are issued 
to them. Many are dying — the government men 
say of consumption — but the fact is, no more, no 
less, they are dying for sheer lack of food and 
clothing. I know I would die in ten days with 
their clothing on and twice as much as they have 
to eat. I know this from experience with the 
weather. 

" It makes my heart bleed to see their distress. 
With these things you sent me I rode through 
their camps and went into their homes yesterday, 
and an hour of greater pain I think I never passed 
through. To see their eyes looking so hungrily 
out of their shivering bodies at all my new fine 
heavy things and at me in them, so warm and com- 
fortable ! At times I felt as if I must tear them off 
to give them to them. 

" Their hearts are warm and receiving, they 
always want me to come, but oh, their poverty and 
actual suffering are indescribable. . . . 

" I am no fanatic ; you know this. But I have a 
pair of eyes that see, ears that are not deaf to 
groans of physical pain, and a heart that cannot 
help feeling that this is no square deal to our Eed 
Brother. It is crime." 

This was a need to be met first if there was to be 
any hope of getting past the wretched bodies to the 
minds within, and boxes of warm clothing were 



244 ^ n Camp and Tepee 



sent out. Thus reenforced, the worker went out 
into the camps to appeal to the hearts within. It 
was up-hill work, for while outwardly receptive and 
eager, they seemed to lack the vigor of mind to 
seize on a new idea. But there were the children 
who were different, one hundred and twenty-two at 
the agency school at Dulce, twenty-six in the dav- 
school at La Jara, twenty miles away. Of then 1 
needs one of the school employees wrote when the 
Reformed Church was considering the assumption 
of responsibility : 

" I feel that much could be done with the young 
people. We have several fine boys now on the 
reservation who see nothing that induces right 
living, and whose ambitions are being killed be- 
cause there is nothing for them to do but (hang) 
around the Trader's store as their relatives do and 
wait for something to drop in then 1 way. 

" I do not feel a church alone is our need : we 
need a mission in every sense of the word. We need 
some place where our girls can go when in trouble 
or in need of help, and find work and shelter. That 
you people do have this kind of missions I have 
been told and I think no field in the whole world 
is so sadly in need of this kind of help." 

The appeal was heard and for the sake of their 
missionary who had always set his face towards the 
southwest, the field has been taken over. 

The generation of Indians belonging to those 
whose life stories move across the pages of this 



Towards the Southwest 245 



book is passing swiftly from us. Among them are 
many steadfast followers of the new " Koad." Their 
lives can speak of the courage and quiet strength 
of purpose that are changing the miserable condi- 
tions of the camps. A new rank presses on. They 
are hampered by inherited superstition, many are 
enchained and weakened by the drug habit of 
Mescal worship, many handicapped by an insuffi- 
cient education. But among them are gifted, eager 
youths reaching out to us for help and guidance. 
We know the inadequacy of all but God's own 
Truth to meet such need. They are beginning to 
know this in part, and to feel out for something to 
build their lives upon that will not slip away 
beneath them as in their tragic past. 

The religion of their fathers is indeed dead — we 
have destroyed it. Now we must give them that 
which alone will enable them to overcome — the 
dynamic power of a vital faith. 



Printed in the United States of America 



STORIES OF THE RED MEN 



FRANKLIN WELLES CALKINS 

The "Wooing of Tokala. Cloth, net . 50, post, extra. 

" Mr. Calkins loves his red men. Their individ- 
uality, their humanity, is strongly borne in upon 
him, and the modern way of looking at all the mys- 
teries of folk lore enables him, both to understand 
and to interpret." — N. Y. Times. 

Two Wilderness Voyagers* A True Story of 
Indian Life. i2mo, cloth, net .50, post, extra. 

u As realistic a romance of the woods as ever was 
penned, and it not only reads as if it were abso- 
lutely true, but it blends* with truth all the poetry of 
primitiveness and all the lore of the natural Indian." 
— Brooklyn Eagle. 

My Host the Enemy, and Other Tales of the 
Northwest. Illustrated. Cloth, net .50, post, 
extra. 

u The stories are all far beyond the average short 
tale in construction and strength and do not lack 
in humor or pathos. There is more truth than 
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EGERTON R. YOUNG 

My Dogs in the Northland. Profusely Illustra- 
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" Since ' Bob, Son of Battle ' (which this book 
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better study of dog nature." — The Outlook. 

Children of the Forest. A Story of Indian Love. 
Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, net. 50, post, extra. 

" The romantic adventures of these wildwood chil- 
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young people.*'— Church man. 

On the Indian Trail, and Other Stories of Mis- 
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Indians Illustrated by J. E. Laughlin. i2mo, 
cloth, net $1.00. 



HOME MISSIONS, RESCUE WORK, Etc. 



ho:'. fej\c:s lev?? ? c T y.s 

In Red Man's Land a a story of the 

Am en can In a: an 

H ome Mission Study Course. Illustrated, i6mo. 
paper, net 30c; cloth, net 50c. 

"Packed full of information and common sense. The 
author knows his subject thoroughly and treats it intelligently 
and sympathetically . 7 : k r. : w zzt I r. i: i ~ b er:e r . r e= 5 :.b:'s 
little bock." — Missions. 

LmxGsrcy ?. ::?'?: 

A Study of the Thlingets of Alaska 

Charles. L. Thompson, Sec'y Board of Home lll«ga«w»«y ©f 
the Presbyterian Church, says 

"The twenty-one je&rs which the Rev. r4vingston F. Jones 
spent as a missionary in Alaska gave him peculiar fitnes s for a 
study of the Thlingets of Alaska. He covers the ground on 
their histery, their language, their social life and industries, 
their customs, superstitions and characters in a clear and 
informing way. This book will be a valuable addition to the 
literature of the Territory.*' 

::a. s, c:i:::r Author trumcus—tr etc. 
Old Andy the Moonshiner 

Illustrated, irmc. ::sris. rte: 5:*:. 

Old Andy the Moonshiner, wrinkled and lovable, "Maw." 

and "Sary, ' faithful types all, of the illiterate whites of the 
Appalachian Mountains, speak eloquently from these pages of 
this little volume of the need there is for remedying a state 
of thing's which is a stigma to the country, and a menace 

to her future welfare. 

4GXis l. ?al::er 

The Salvage of Men 

Stories of Humanity Touched by Divinity. i2mo, 

cloth, net $1.00. 

"The stories are taken from the work of the Salvation 
Army and embrace a number :: the classes of society to 
which that organization renders its witness to Christ as the 
Saviour of sinners. As one reads he is impressed anew with 
the fact that 'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sin- 
ners,' not the respectable sinners, but the chief of sinners.** 
— Christian Observer. 

?.?r. ??..????:: : ??:'?:: 

From the Bread -Line to the Pulpit 

12m©, paper, net^ 35c. ^ ^ ^_ 

rescue and his recovery. His experiences were such as even 
few reformed men pass through.** — Methodist Protestant. 



HOME MISSIONS— YOUNG FOLKS 



REV GILBERT L. WILSON 

Good Bird, the Indian 

Home Mission Junior Study Course. Illustrated, 
i6mo, boards, net 40c; paper, net 25c. 

Who wouldn't like to sit down by an old Indian and hear 
from his lips the story of his life and the lives of the peo- 
ple? Certainly every American boy or girl would, and that 
is just what is offered to the fortunate boys and girls who 
use this either as a text book in their Home Missionary So- 
cieties, or as their very own book. 

GEORGE EDWARD HA IVES 

The Fresh Air Child 

i2mo, cloth, net 50c. 

This simple little tale will carry the sure appeal of un- 
protected and unparented childhood to the heart of the 
reader. As a campaign document in the interests of fresh 
air and better homes for the stifled and abandoned children 
of our great cities, it will make an irresistible and most ef- 
fective appeal. 

CHARLES LINCOLN WHITE 

Prince and Uncle Billy 

A First Reader in Home Missions. i6mo, cloth, 
net 75c. 

"Prince" is a pony, once owned by the Indians, and 
"Uncle Blly" an old horse, used formerly by a frontier mis- 
sionary on his preaching journeys. These too, and many 
other animals tell missionary stories and other incidents of 
their earlier lives. 

MARY LANE D WIGHT 

Children of Labrador 

Illustrated, i6mo, cloth, net 60c. 

It is hard to picture a more delightful addition to "The 
Children's Missionary Series" than this vivid story of Dr. 
Grenfell's land. Its simplicity and clearness appeals to chil- 
dren, yet grown-ups will be equally fascinated in its de- 
scriptions of the children of the Eskimos and fishermen of 
this barren land, so pathetically described by an old native as 
"wonderful bleak and dreary." 

Earlier Volumes in The Children" 5 Missionary Series 

Children of Africa Children of India Children of Egypt 

James M. Baird Janet Harvey Kelman Miss L. Crowther 

Children of Arabia Children of Ceylon Children of Persia 

John C. Young Thomas Moscrop Mrs. Napier Malcolm 

Children of China Children of Jamaica Children of Japan 
C. Campbell Brown Isabel C. Maclean Janet Harvey Kelman 



FICTION WORTH READING 



S. R. CROCKE TT Author of" The Stickit Minister 
■ " The Raiders ," etc. 

Silver Sand 

A Romance of Old Galloway. Cloth, net $1.25. 

"In this romance published only a few days after his 
death, we find Mr. Crockett in his familiar Wigtownshire, 
writing at his best, and giving us an eve:: finer display of his 
powers than when he firs: captured his admirers. 'Silver 
Ssnd* is certainly one of the best thing's he ever did. Some 
of the characters here portrayed are among the best of his 
many creations, with an even added depth and tenderness." — 
Pall' Mall Gazette. 

CAROLINE ABBOT STANLEY 

Dr. Llewellyn and His Friends 

Illustrated, 12010, cloth, net $1.25. 

Mrs. Stanley's new book is a human chronicle of absorbing 
interest. Humor and pathos of a rar-e order alternate in its 
pages, together with seme astonishingly good delineation of 
negro life and character. _ The Kansas City Stir says: "'If 
there is to be a Missouri school of literature to rival the 
famed Indiana institution, Mrs. Stanley has fairly earned the 
right to a charter membership." 

GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL LUTZ 

The Man of the Desert 

Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, net Si. 25. 

The author of "The Best Man," "Marcia Schuyler." etc, 
enjoys no mean reputation as a weaver of sweet, wholesome 
romances, a reputation which "The Man of the Des-~t" 
fulh* maintains. Her latest book tells the love story of a 
daughter of luxury and a plain man facing his duty and 
doing his work on the hrrr.e missi:n field of the West. Every 
reader of this charming story will be made to rejoice in the 
happy triumph over difficulties which gives to these young 
people the crowning joy of life, the union of kindred souls, 

THURLOW FRASER 

The Call of The Easft 

A Romance of Far Formosa. Illustrated, istrro, 
cloth, net $1.25. 

Here is a jewel in romance — set amid the blossom-laden 
islands of the Eastern seas. T: its making go the record 
of one white man's heroism and native worth, of another's 
baseness and treachery; some thrilling incidents of the French 
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despatch with which he could bring his gun to the "draw." 
Into one of these lawless camps comes little Olaf, a homeless 
wanderer from the East. His advent, followed by that of 
tbe Morrisons, marks a new era for Canyon Creek which 
ends in the "cleaning up" of the entire town. Dr. Brady 
gives us a captivating tale, brim-full of the vim and color 
incident t® days and places where life was cheap, and virtue 
both rare and dear. 

MARIETTA HOLLEY "Samantha Allen" 

Josiah Allen on the Woman Question 

Ilustrated, i6mo, cloth, net $1.00. 

A new volume from the pen of Miss Holley, marked by such 
quaint thoughtfulness and timely reflection as ran through 
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indeed they should, for they will have done some hearty laughing, 
and have been 'up against' some bits of striking philosophy deliv- 
ered with point, vigor, and chuckling humor. All Josiah Allen's 
opinions are wittily, pithily expressed, causing the whole book to 
fairly bubble with homely, fun-provoking wisdom. 

/. 7. BE LL Author of " Wee Macgreegor, ' ' 
"Oh! Christina!" etc. 

The Misadventures of Joseph 

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extricates himself from many a seeming dilemma, by the ex 
ercise of a kindly charity and the best attributes of a man. 

THEODORA PECK Author of 
The Sword of Dundee 

White Dawn 

A Legend of Ticonderoga. Illustrated, net $1.25. 

A real romance, redolent of love and war. The plot, 
for the most part, is laid in the beautiful Champlain valley, 
in the days when the British were storming Ticonderoga, 
and the armies of Wolfe and Montcalm striving for su- 
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simply packs her book with action, and depicts scene after 
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NORMAN DUNCAN 

The Bird-Store Man 

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dog Alexander; to the little girl who owns him and her 
veteran^ grandfather, is related with a whimsical tenderness 
few writers since Dickens have been able to employ. Ihere 
is many a long chuckle awaiting the readers of THE) BIRD 
STORE MAN, and not a few tugs at the heart. 

CLARA E. LAUGHLIN „ Author of 

Everybody" s Lonesome" 

Everybody's Birthright 

A Vision of Jeanne dArc. Illustrated, i2tno, 
cloth, net 75c. 

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contrived to put a lot of thoughts on interesting problems 
into a story that is full of the human touches that gives life 
to a book. It should add another to that series of classics 
for girls which have made Miss Laughlin the friend of girls 
and parents as well." — Norma Bright Carson. 

WINIFRED ARNOLD Author of "Mis' Basset? s 

— — Matrimony Bureau" 

Little Merry Christmas 

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her crusty old uncle, _ together with the entire village, is led 
into the delectable kingdom of Peace and Goodwill by the 
guiding hand of a child, is here told in as sweet and jolly 
a little story as anybody has either written or read in many 
a long year. 

NORMAN HINSDALE PITMAN u Author of 

1 ' 'The Lady Elect \ etc. 

A Chinese Christmas Tree 

Illustrated by Liu Hsing-p'u. Boards, net 50c. 

Here is a Christmas story that is "different"— scenes laid 
in China, real Chinese children romping through its chapters, 
and illustrated by quaint pictures drawn by # a real Chinese 
artist. Those who gratefully remember this author's fine 
story "The Lady Elect," will not be surprised to find a vein 
cf mellow wisdom, tempered with warm, glowing sunshine. 



BC 10.5 



FICTION—OUT-DOOR LIFE— JUVENILE 



LATHAN A. CRANDALL 

Days in the Open 

A Fisherman's Answer to the Red God's Call. 
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Here is a book which has about it something of old Izaak 
Walten, of Richard JefTeries, of Henry van Dyke. But there 
is a very much more of the author himself; for he is of 
that diverting and gallant company who love to chant the 
praises of moor and mead, of silver stream, of the open 
road. Mr. Crandall is an enthusiastic angler and his book is 
the re-cord of a man out on his peaceful adventures, whip- 
ping winsome waters and treading fresh, sweet earth. There 
is a positive fascination about what he writes, too, which if it 
does not, like a Pied Piper, lure a man out of the city gate, 
will, at least, give him to long to be awa' in the core of 
Nature's heart. 

REV. ALBERT H. PLUMB 

When Mayflowers Blossom 

A Romance of Plymouth's First Years. 8vo, net $1.50. 

Rev. William Allen Knight, Litt.D., author of "The Song 
of Our Syrian Guest," says: " 'When Mayflowers Blossom' 
is a love story told in a big, brainy way. It is Homeric in its 
leisureliness, its grave mind-play on a historic tradition, its 
occasional deft pictures in words. For example, read the 
chapter, 'Tempest on the Deep,' and note that 'next morn- 
ing the sun rose murky red like a wounded warrior in flow- 
ing blood lifting himself from a battle field.' Minds fond of 
old-time meatiness in writing will find this book worthy of 
their attention." 

DILLON WALLACE Author of 11 The Lure of the Labrador 
— Wild'''' and " Ungava Bob" 

The Gaunt Gray Wolf 

Illustrated. i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 

A rattling new story by the man who survived the perils 
of the great journey into the heart of Labrador which re- 
sulted in the death of Leonidas Hubbard, Jr. "Ungava 
Bob" here makes a welcome reappearance, and through a 
series of thrilling adventures both he and his companion, 
Shad Trowbridge, face danger and hardship with the stiff 
upper lip of "gentlemen unafraid." 

REV. S. /. REID 

Young People's Pilgrim's Progress 

With Exposition. Illustrated, net $1.00. 

"The young people of former generations read Bunyan's 
classic with delight. Dr. Reid has been a profound student 
of the Pilgrim's Progress, and, without laying vandal hands 
on it, has succeeded in producing a 'new version' of the 
classic that will be understood and appreciated by everyone. 
The older people will enjoy it and profit by it as mueh 
as the younger people." — Watchman-Examiner. 



SHELDON JACKSON 

The Life of Sheldon Jackson, Pathfinder and 

Prospector of the Missionary Vanguard in the 
Rocky Mountains. By Robert Laird Stewart, 
D3. Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $2.00. 

" The story of a thoroughgoing Western pioneer 
and frontiersman. Dr. Theodore L. Coyler said: 
4 When the future historian writes the religious annals 
of this backbone of our continent [the Rockies] he 
will give the foremost place to Sheldon Jackson, the 
pioneer of the cross.* " — N. Y. Times. 



JOHN T. FARIS 
7 he Alaskan Pathfinder. The Story of Sheldon 
jackson for Boys. i2ino, cloth, net $».oo. 

The story of Sheldon Jackson will appeal irresisti- 
bly to every boy. Action from the time he was, as 
an infant, rescued from a fire to liis years of strenu- 
ous rides through the Rockies and his long years of 
service in Alaska, permeate every pige of the book. 



JOHN V. ARCTANDER 

The Apostle of Alaska. The Story of William 

Duncan of Metlakahtla. Illustrated, i2mo, 

cloth, net $1 so 

** It tells the story of William Duncan, the mis- 
sionary among the gTeat detached section of the 
United States. Nothing could be more romantic, 
more thrilling, more redolent of patience and high 
courage, than this story of his life-work-— a thorough 
and absorbing record." — Minneapolis Tribune, 



LIVINGSTON F. JONES 

A Study of the Thlingets of Alaska, ismo, 
doth. Illustrated, net Si .50. 

For twenty-one years the author has labored as a 
missionary representing the Presbyterian Board of 
Home Missions among the people about which he 
writes. Probably no living man is better qualified to 
tell about this interesting race. 






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